
?/& 



ZJLSy 



BISHOP PIEM8 

Sermons and Addresses. 



\ 



WITH A FEW 

SPECIAL DrSgOURSES BY DR. PJER8E. 



EDITED BY 

REV. ATTICUS G. HAYGOOD, D.D., LL.D. 




WAY 22 1886 

^ )e WASHING 



NASHVILLE, TENN. 

Southern Methodist Publishing House. 

18SS. 



[THE LI** A** I 

10 r cono****] 

iWASHIHOTOHi 



-32 
."P5-B5 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1886, 

By the Book Agents of the Methodist Episcopal Chubch, South, 

in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



Introduction. 



Three characteristic sermons of Dr. Lovick Pierce are included 
in this volume. It is to be regretted that no sermons of his early 
ministry could be found. Dr. Pierce began to write in the latter part 
of his seventy-five years' ministry; it is doubtful if he wrote a dozen 
sermons during the first fifty years of his itinerant life. I have not 
found any that belong to the first forty years; there are only a few 
unclothed and imperfect skeletons that bear evidence of having been 
"put together" after preaching. For example: I find among some 
old scraps of papers three or four pages of notes of a discourse de- 
livered at the funeral of the Eev. Hope Hull — a man he greatly 
honored and loved. One familiar with Dr. Pierce's preaching 
would conclude from the size and shape of these few "bones" that this 
funeral-sermon was one of his two hours' masterful discourses. 

Dr. Pierce never wrote many sermons; it is almost certain that 
lie never delivered a sermon from manuscript. It would have been 
very awkward to him, and partly because he thought it "wrong" for 
a Methodist preacher to read sermons. I never saw him with a 
"scrap of paper" in the pulpit, except, now and then, a copy of the 
numbers of the hymns he had given to the choir leader. 

His method of preparation for the pulpit was to him so simple 
that he thought any man of " good natural parts " could practice it 
if he would, though most men who have any conception of what 
thorough work is could neither wear nor use the armor of this 
preaching king. He did not write, he did not make notes, he did 
not think out his sermons in detail ; his mind was saturated with the 
Scriptures, he was always thinking, he brooded over his themes, he 

(3) 



INTRODUCTION. 



was always full of topics, and, as a rule, could preach as well with 
thirty minutes' as thirty days' notice. The topic, say, was conformity 
to the world. He had thought it through in a general way, some in- 
stances were brought to his attention, an opportunity to preach came 
to him, and at once a fit text rose up in his thoughts. He never 
went " fishing for texts," and as to other men's " Skeletons of Ser- 
mons " it was a humiliation to him that any preacher ever used them 
All he wanted was five minutes to " put the text on its basis," as he 
expressed it to me once, and he was ready to begin. He knew the 
road lie wished to travel, and entered it without first counting the 
mile-posts; and lie would as unhesitatingly clear a road where he 
had "blazed a few trees" as he would take the beaten highway. 

I do not believe that he ever arranged two sentences before begin- 
ning to preach ; the sermons in this volume were written after de- 
livery. How many thousands of sermons he preached he never 
knew himself; it is doubtful if any preacher ever handled as many 
different texts. 

Most of this volume is taken up with sermons and speeches by 
Bishop Pierce. He wrote little; writing was very irksome to him — 
chiefly, I think, because he wrote slowly and thought very rapidly. 
He shared his father's opinion — I had almost said prejudice —against 
writing sermons. Most of the few sermons that Bishop Pierce wrote 
were put on paper after preaching, with this difference as compared 
with his father: some of the sermons the Bishop wrote after preach- 
ing he would preach again. I do not believe that the " Old Doctor" 
ever preached what he had written — partly because the occasion had 
passed, and partly because he did not like to be inconsistent with his 
view of the best preparation for the pulpit. I have evidence that 
some of the "Conference sermons" in this collection were first 
preached in Sparta, in his home church — " blocked out " as the 
Bishop once expressed it to me — then preached at some Conference, 
then written out, and afterward preached repeatedly. There was 
this among other differences between the two great preachers: the 



INTRODUCTION. 



son could repeat a sermon, and often did; the father did not, and, 
except as to substance of thought and general form, could not. This 
also as to preparation: the son could think a sermon through, ex- 
egesis, arguments, enlargement, illustrations, and the very words, 
and deliver it as accurately as if he had written and memorized it. 
Knowing this peculiar gift of his tenacious memory for words as 
well as thoughts, I once ventured to say to him that his condemna- 
tion of those who could not do like him and must needs write on 
paper in order to memorize was hardly fair. To me he seemed un- 
conscious of any peculiar gift of the sort here mentioned. 

Most of Bishop Pierce's sermons and speeches that were written 
out in full by him are in this Volume. A few have been published 
in pamphlet form before, and one in the Smithson collection of ser- 
mons. They are included in this collection to give them permanent 
form, and because they fairly represent their author in some of his 
best moods. In selecting them I have been guided by two princi- 
ples: first, to publish those that most characteristically express the 
great preacher at different periods of his ministry and on different 
occasions; second, to publish those he attached most importance to, 
because he thought them most likely to do gjpod. 

Bishop Pierce often disappointed his admirers by choosing for 
some state occasion the plainest and most practical of themes. He 
abhorred being made a show of. The country churches in Hancock 
county, where his former neighbors worshiped, heard from his lips 
not only as good but as eloquent preaching as he ever did. He was 
more apt to give them a brilliant, electrifying sermon than to splen- 
did congregations in the great city churches; not because he tried to 
preach so to them, but because he was " off guard " in the midst of 
his plain neighbors, and did not try not to please the ear and tickle 
the fancy of the curious. 

I have on my desk, while writing this brief Introduction, a sort 
of " log-book " used by Bishop Pierce for thirty years. It is a plain 
blank- book, and the first entry is as follows: " 1. Heb.i v. 16 — Greens- 



INTRODUCTION. 



boro, Ga., Jan. 31, 1836." The last on the last page is as follows: 
"G,3S2— 2 Cor. viii. 12— Culverton, Ga., Dee. 16, 1866." 

After this he grew tired of keeping the account; the little book 
was full to the last page, and I find no further memoranda of texts, 
places, and times. All who care to know his manner of life will 
be sorry to learn that this little book of dates, texts, and places is 
all in the shape of diary that exists. He only noted what in his 
view was the important thing in his life — his jjreaching. In the 
whole record there is nothing but what is here given — not a note 
as to the "occasion," the "effect on the congregation," the "com- 
ments of the press." I think he never cut out and pasted in a scrap- 
book any newspaper notice of any thing he ever did. 

If there is any difference in the indications of these brief mem- 
oranda of his preaching, it is that after he became Bishop he was 
more intensely practical and evangelical in his ministry. 

One month during the thirty years he seems to have been silent. 
It was in 1859. He had started to California by the overland route # 
I find the record thus: " New Orleans, April 25; Shreveport, May 1; 
Eusk, May 4; San Marcos, May 14, 15; Stringtown, May 15 (three 
sermons that Sunday); San Antonio, May 19; Uvalde, May 21; San 
Francisco, June 19 — morning and evening." October 10 he preached 
at Los Angeles — between San Francisco and Los Angeles preaching 
fifty times. 

The record is not complete — being most imperfect in 1860 and 
1861. The storm was gathering and breaking, and his long habit of 
jotting down his texts, places, and times for awhile lost its hold 
upon him. There are only eight sermons noted in 1861, and they 
were all preached in Hancock county. For 1862 the record appears 
to be nearly complete. 

It would be hard to say which preacher — the father or the son — 
most rejoiced in preaching. It was to each a perpetual delight. They 
were unhappy if silent two successive Sundays; they preached every 
opportunity that offered, and would make opportunity if it was slow 



INTRODUCTION. 



coming. Both did their best preaching in the midst of revivals, and 
for their best efforts were consciously dependent on the presence and 
power of God. They responded promptly to evidences of interest 
and emotion in their hearers, and deprecated to their dying-day the 
growing fashion of suppressing feeling. 

It is not the language of exaggeration to say that not many great- 
er preachers have appeared in Methodist history. Possibly future 
times may develop as great or greater preachers, but two such men 
will appear no more; the conditions of life that made them what 
they were are gone forever. 

It should be said in conclusion that these sermons and addresses 

have been "edited" only in the sense that they have been prepared 

for the printer. It was not my place to harmonize — if there were 

need of it — expressions in sermons and speeches delivered years 

apart and under different surroundings. Nor would it have been fair 

to the honored dead to have toned down language here and there that 

may displease the fastidious. These preachers, while yet among us, 

did not study to please, but to do good. What is in this volume, 

as far as it goes, expresses what these men believed to be the very 

truth. Let it go forth to continue the ministry which was so long 

a joy and blessing to the Church. 

Atticus G. Haygood. 

Oxfobd, Ga., Mnrch 1, 1886. 



Contents. 



SERMONS. page 

Devotedness to Christ 63 

Why .Women Should be Well Educated 90 

Paul's Commission to Preach. By Dr. Lovick Pierce 110 

The Word of God a Nation's Life 137 

Make Full Proof of Thy Ministry 158 

The Office and Work of a Bishop. By Dr. Lovick 

Pierce 179 

Christ and Him Crucified 218 

Paul's Charge to the Elders in Ephesus 232 

Bishop James Osgood Andrew 249 

The Moral Power of a Good Woman. By Dr. Lovick 

Pierce 267 

Mary's Love ." , 291 

The Inadequacy of Secular Learning 307 

Friendship with the World Enmity with God 318 

Moral Principles the Only Safeguard 335 

Character and Work of a Gospel Minister 353 

ADDRESSES. 

Learning and Religion 9 

Church Colleges . . 38 

Public Opinion 203 

The Portrait of a Friend and Helpes 330 

Revival Needed. Addressed to the Church through the 

Press 367 

(8) 



Sermons and Addresses, 



Learning and Religion. 



YOUNG gentlemen, summoned by your kindness, I ap- 
pear before you, not only as an act of reciprocal cour- 
tesy, but in obedience to a higher impulse — the desire 
to be useful. 

Custom has appropriated occasions like this to the discus- 
sion of questions connected with literature, science, and elo- 
cution so exclusively that a change may strike you not only 
with the disagreeableness of surprise, but disappoint you 
of your anticipated entertainment. The subjects to which 
I have referred are rich, various, and elevated; yet every 
inch of ground within the length and breadth of their range 
has been occupied and cultivated, and now every division 
of the land is called by some mighty name. If I had no 
other reason for change of topic, the simple fact that Boaz 
and his reapers had been before me would justify me in 
seeking another field — one that has neither been mowed nor 
gleaned. 

*This address was delivered before the Few and Phi Gamma So- 
cieties of Emory College, Oxford, Georgia, at the Commencement, 
July 19, 1842. A considerable portion of it was introduced into an 
address delivered at the anniversary of the American Bible Society, 
in New York, during the session of the General Conference of 1844. 
The most careful search failed to find the speech as delivered in 
New York. The address, as it appears here, was published by re- 
quest of the two literary societies soon after its delivery in 1842. By 
request of the same societies it was republished in 1852. — Editor. 

(9)" 



10 bishop pierce's sermons and addresses. 

But why should religious subjects be denied a prominent 
place in the literature of the country? Why should this, 
the largest territory over which the mind of man has ever 
expatiated, be excluded from the republic of letters*? By 
whose authority, by what enactment, has it been ordained 
that these themes should be restricted to the Sabbath 
and to the temple of God, and that the introduction of 
them on other occasions should be regarded as a trespass on 
taste and an infringement of propriety? It is high time 
that the class of men who arrogate to themselves the right 
of building up or pulling down, of recommendation to fame 
or consignment to obscurity — who assume to be the guardi- 
ans of learning and the standards of judgment — proscribing 
this and adopting that, should learn that wisdom will live 
long after they are dead. These self-constituted judges pro- 
nounce upon style without regard to doctrine, and give a 
certificate of character to a book that it may make its way 
in the world, though it deals death at every step, and leaves 
desolation throughout its progress. The eloquence of the 
language redeems the corruption of the sentiments, and the 
skill of the swordsman disguises the agonies of the victim. 

I am aware that the conventional signification of the 
term "literature" restricts the application of it to essays, 
novels, poetry, periodicals, and kindred works, with all their 
diversity of characters, incidents, and themes; but in all 
these there is no inculcation of religious truth of set design. 
An occasional moral reflection — the making of the catas- 
trophe of a tale speak upon the side of virtue, satirizing an 
unfashionable vice — can never invest a book with a moral 
character or neutralize the evil of its tendency, The sub- 
tle poison, though diluted and spiced, will infect with dis- 
ease, which, however modified in its development, is the 
pledge and precursor of death. 

Works confessedly designed for entertainment rather than 



LEARNING AND RELIGION. 11 

the communication of useful knowledge must needs be ac- 
commodated to popular sentiment and prevailing taste ; and 
these demand, as the food of their gratification, what is an 
element of destruction to the nobler powers of the under- 
standing and the better interests of human society. And 
those who in the chase of honor or the lust of gold cater to 
the morbid cravings of a fastidious, dainty, vitiated appe- 
tite, in the very extravagance of accommodation, corrupt 
in order to indulge, and kill for the sake of pleasing. 
Books are made to order ; and authors, shifting all respon- 
sibility from themselves to the applicant, coolly delude into 
error, if not vice, by removing the way-marks of virtue, and 
fritter away the distinctions of right and wrong by reduc- 
ing the standard of obligation and erecting upon the sub- 
stratum of what are called the honorable principles of hu- 
man nature the filigree temple of a morality in which no 
God is recognized but fashion, and no creed but licentious- 
ness. These magicians so invest sensual pleasure with the 
enchantments of genius that the unholy theme well-nigh 
beguiles the imagination of the purest. Nature's solitudes 
are peopled with their fairy creations, and all her echoes 
held mute by their minstrelsy. The flowers of the garden, 
the herbs of the field and the forest, the everlasting rocks, 
from their summits in the clouds to their deep foundations 
in the earth, all have their worshipers, riding upon the 
ocean, wayfaring in the desert, making pilgrimage to every 
region of nature for offerings to their patron muses. The 
noble sentiments of the heart, domestic joys, sorrows radi- 
ant with virtue's light, or dark w T ith the gloom of guilt, all 
have their priests and sacrifices and devotees. All these 
have been wrought into the song of love, the voluptuous 
poem, the dramatic tale, the romantic story, and have been 
mingled with scenes and characters and opinions disgust- 
ing, abominable, and impious. Those that are too grace- 



12 bishop pierce's sermons and addresses. 

ful to offend, too chaste to be reproved, yet minister no 
good, exist and operate in utter separation from the true 
interests, the high destinies of man, whether regarded as a 
useful citizen of the country or a responsible subject of the 
^ divine government. 

This light literature, made up as it is of fine words and 
false sentiments, oftentimes, like the seed borne upon the 
winds, has fallen, vegetated, matured into harvest far be- 
yond the fields from whence it sprung. Now, when Ave re- 
member that reading is the food of thought, and thought 
the cause of action, who that thinks can but feel the neces- 
sity of impregnating literature with religious truth, and 
imbuing the now discordant mass with the leaven of salva- 
tion? Ministers and servants of God, stepping beyond the 
limits of pulpit theology, must throw into all their effusions, 
whether from the press or the rostrum, an admixture of 
pious thought and devotional feeling ; must secure passage 
for the Bible upon every vehicle — history, science, politics, 
poetry, sentiment — and give it circulation round the world ; 
for if, like its author, it were permitted "to go about," like 
him, it would " do good." 

The age in which we live is remarkable in its aspects, 
literary, political, and religious. The causes which have 
operated to produce these appearances are as various as 
their effects ; and the developments of character that have 
been molded by them all indicate the presence and domin- 
ion of feelings and opinions malign and corrupting. To 
analyze them is not my purpose. The futility of the at- 
tempt would rebuke the trespass upon your patience. Nev- 
ertheless, it is worthy of remark that the agencies which 
for the last few years have been at work upon the human 
mind demonstrate the identity of their design by uniformity 
of evil, whatever the diversity of results. Whatever the 
shape, it has been Proteus still. The rush of energy which 



LEARNING AND RELIGION. 13 

has marked the movements of society, in the fury of its 
progress and the recklessness of its demands, has proscribed 
all soberness of judgment, and swept the multitude along 
by the force of an impulse too capricious for examination 
and too headlong for reflection. Men and books and opin- 
ions have all partaken of the same qualities. Strong, rap- 
id, intense, these have been their characteristics. The only 
antagonistic principle in the mechanism of motives that 
could have preserved an equilibrium has been wanting ; and 
the human mind, wrought up well-nigh to frenzy by the 
perpetual application of stimulants, has grown vagrant and 
vicious, frothy and frivolous, seeking rest and finding none ; 
the sport of every freak of fancy and of passion, and care- 
less at last of its foul disfigurement, is glad to find forget- 
fulness of its miseries in the turbid excitement of the worst 
opinions and the vilest crimes. 

Adaptation to such a mental state is the desideratum in 
every thing, without which no moral property can secure 
it currency, and with which no perilous effect will prevent 
embracement. The consequence has been and is that truth, 
without the gold ring and the goodly apparel, without the 
parade of paradox or the pretension of novelty, has been de- 
spised ; while falsehood, with letters of credit, has been lifted 
to pride of place and power of position because of the bold- 
ness of its diction and the effrontery of its air. Sentiments 
which ought to have been denounced for their impiety have 
been tolerated for the daring of their independence. Ac- 
tions which ought to have stigmatized the perpetrator as a 
felon, and have consigned him to the gibbet or the prison, 
have been admired for the vigor of their conception and 
the hardihood of their execution. That famous line, 

One murder makes a villain ; millions, a hero, 
contains at once the rule of judgment and the principle of 
action. Sin — corruption on a small scale — has been con- 



14 BISHOP PIERCE'S SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

strued to betray a littleness of soul beyond redemption, to 
define a straggler upon the trail where mind has marched, 
too feeble to follow, too worthless to be carried, and fit only 
for contempt. A bolder crime, though a more decided ex- 
pression of the same depravity, has been mitigated of its 
horror by the facetiousness of its name, or even invested 
with a charm by the splendor of its title. In the one case 
the criminal has been arraigned, condemned, sent out upon 
the earth a vagabond, with the law's penal brand upon 
him; the other has been pitied as an archangel fallen, lion- 
ized as a man capable of glorious virtue, though stained 
with foulest crime. 

But a little while ago the rabid lust of gold luxuriated 
in the abundance of its treasures, taxed winds and waves 
and forest to minister to its cravings, climbed mountains, 
crossed seas, visited islands, reaped and gleaned and gar- 
nered, pulled down its old barns and built greater, ate 
the lambs of the flock, lay down upon beds of ivory, in- 
vented instruments of music like David, and in the extrav- 
agance of its folly and the carnival of its delight polluted 
the very vessels of the sanctuary with the wine of its intox- 
ication. But now, stripped, bereaved, forlorn, it mourns in 
stupid grief, or raves in wild insanity, the barrenness of its 
fields, the spoliations of its commerce, and the bankruptcy 
of all its resources, and even the futurity of its hopes is 
shrouded in cheerless, palpable gloom.* 

The convulsions of the monetary world seem to have 
produced or developed a depravity unparalleled, to have 
loosened all the habits of business honesty, to have stirred 
the foundations of character with the upheaving, disruptive 
energy of an earthquake. Over society at large degener- 
acy has gone like a wave of ruin. Law is weak in its 

*This speech was delivered when the country was in deep finan- 
cial depression. — Editor. 



LEARNING AND HELIGIOK. 13 

strongest arm; morality is prostrate; politics, disjoined 
from patriotism, has become a mere strife of fongues; the 
legislature, Congress, the country, alike one unvaried scene 
of change, licentiousness, and tumult. The storm-spirit is 
upon the waters, and the elements, roused and raging, dash 
in eternal collisions the interests and passions of men. The 
world, exhausted and bewildered, is powerless to do or to 
plan. The necessity to do something, pressing alike upon 
every department of society, has produced words without 
knowledge, commotion without action, restlessness without 
progress, and enterprise without achievement. Where is 
the remedy to be found ? Must we await the action of nat- 
ural causes? invoke the aid of legislation, and hope against 
hope for a brighter, better day? Society never works off 
its own evils by fermentation unless there is the importa- 
tion of a foreign ingredient. There is no self-purifying 
process, and the evils that afflict humanity are too subtle 
and intangible oftentimes to be subjected to any of the 
modes of correction known to the laws of the land. The 
best that fleshly wisdom can do is, by a modification of ex- 
isting and intolerable corruption, to substitute a less for a 
greater. And perhaps yet oftener, when once the turbid, 
violent effervescence of public passion has subsided, and the 
raging fires that flamed beneath the mighty caldron have 
expired in ashes, it is found that the elements of evil have 
only been boiled down to consistency and substance. Ag- 
itated or at rest, there is death in the mixture, unless the 
meal, the leaven of Christianity, be cast into the vessel. 

A formidable obstruction to any salutary change is to be 
found in the fact that the simplest truths are those which 
the human mind is the slowest to learn. Too often obscurity 
is the proof of wisdom, and involved and tortuous arrange- 
ment presumptive evidence of genius and adaptation for 
great results, This is true in philosophy; it is so in the 



16 bishop pierce's sermons and addresses 

business of civil government, and especially so in educa- 
tion and religion. A doctrine too true for controversy, an 
opinion too trite and obvious for explication or argument 
when expressed at large, is the very point which the per- 
versity of the human mind evades. If unperceived before, 
it is rejected in compliment to that pride of heart which 
spurns the idea of dependence, and disdains the confession 
of ignorance; if perceived, because simplicity is regarded as 
incompatible with efficiency. There must be a complex 
mechanism of means and motives, an imposing array of 
plans and reasons, a recognition of the philosophy of mind 
— falsely so called — before public confidence can be fixed 
or expectation created. Man must weave the net if incense 
is to be offered to it. 

Those who have aspired to the control of society have 
accommodated their policy to the flattery of this innate 
pride, these self-conceited prejudices, and have become pur- 
veyors to passions that ought to have been starved instead 
of being pampered. No lesson of history, no disappoint- 
ment of experience, no abortion of effort, no calamity of 
result, has been able to dethrone that overweening confi- 
dence in ourselves which presides over the decisions of the 
understanding and assumes to control the feelings of the 
heart. Compelled to see, and desirous of meliorating, the 
moral woes of the world, we yet obstinately rely upon 
earthly schemes, almost excluding, or at best but partially 
adopting, the only remedial agent which, in the judgment 
of the great I Am, is competent to effectuate the desired 
end. 

While I yield to none in my admiration of the zeal that 
has distinguished the last few years of our country's history 
for the diffusion of knowledge, the promotion of learning, 
I have looked with some apprehension upon the probable 
results, simply because the Bible — the great conservative 



LEARNING AND RELIGION. 17 

power of the world's happiness and prosperity — has not 
been recognized with sufficient distinctness, nor incorpo- 
rated so intimately with the course of instruction as duty 
and interest conspire to demand. 

Knowledge, learning, reputation, are not ultimate ends; 
and those systems which look not beyond these, though per- 
haps temporarily expedient, politically wise, are neverthe- 
less radically defective. There is a carnal policy, honest 
and judicious as to this world, considering man apart from 
his eternal relations, but ruinous to him as a creature re- 
sponsible to God. There may be an undue appreciation of 
scholarship, valuable as it is ; there are mistaken views of 
interest lying at the foundation of popular opinions on this 
subject. The infidel sentiment that the youthful mind 
should be left free ; that no direct, undisguised effort should 
be made to lead it to religion and to God; that to teach 
repentance, the love of Christ, the duty of prayer, is a sec- 
tarianism, offensive and intolerable, has obtained footing in 
the Church, and, with all our advances to a better state of 
things, yet lingers among us an incubus and a shame. 
There has been a timorousness and a caution which seemed 
to indicate a secret conviction of at least the doubtfulness 
of our movements and a willingness to conform to popular 
sentiment upon the first murmur of dissent. We have be- 
come the abettors of a popular evil for the sake of patron- 
age by a partial performance of a duty that ought to have 
been considered by a Christian people as inviolable as one 
of the laws of nature. As if ashamed of the word of God, 
or suspicious of the political expediency of its influences, 
we have substituted some human writer on its evidences for 
Moses and the prophets, Christ and the apostles. We have 
walked round about Zion and gazed from the mole-hills of 
science upon the towers thereof as they rise in the grand- 
eur of their strength and the awfulness of their elevation, 



18 BISHOP piebce's sermons and addbesses. 

but we have not gone in to furnish the rising generation 
with weapons from her armory for the defense of virtue 
and the destruction of her foes, 

We admit the capital doctrine of Divine Agency, and 
believe Christianity to be the medium through which God's 
blessing comes to the world, and recognize that the vital 
force of any instrumentality, however intelligent, depends 
upon association with the power of this divine economy; 
and yet we pay more attention to other truths than to these. 
We rely upon proximate and visible means, and render un- 
due homage to the ordinary appliances of instruction. I 
insist that, while we believe the perpetuity of a free govern- 
ment to hang upon Heaven's protection, all proper and le- 
gitimate means should be used to conform the people to his 
will. If the nation's safety consists in the nation's purity, 
sanctify the sources of thought and feeling by Biblical 
knowledge. If correct opinions, sound morals, real happi- 
ness are the fruits of revealed religion, connect religious 
instruction — not nominally and partially, but really and 
thoroughly — w T ith the course of education. Strange to tell, 
however, with the popular system of instruction there has 
been no necessary moral influence, the cultivation of no 
individual virtue, the correction of no evil in society. Re- 
garding man as a creature of time, a citizen of the coun- 
try, a social being, he has been taught to compute, to exam- 
ine, to speculate, to write, to speak, as if these were all the 
furniture of life and the preparation for its duties. The 
meager morality which asks no better Bible than the enact- 
ments of human legislatures, or the conventional codes of 
fashionable society, has been the safeguard of character and 
the guardian of general interest. 

What are the results? Public sentiment corrupt, prin- 
ciples sapped, passions uncontrolled, vice triumphant. The 
wall of defense has been whitened, but the coloring cannot 



LEARNING AND RELIGION. 19 



conceal its weakness. The sepulcher has been painted, but 
within its beautiful exterior the worm has lived and battened. 
The mind, cultivated, expanded, strengthened, has been sur- 
rendered to the stimulus of passion bent on the work of 
destruction. The torpid serpent has been warmed and 
nourished in the spirit of mistaken kindness, and without 
the extraction of a fang or the subjugation of a passion has 
been turned loose for the work of a keener rapine and a 
more sanguinary desolation. Who more vicious than many 
of our graduates? Who more dissolute than the distin- 
guished, the great, the prominent men of the country? 
Who have contributed so much to the deterioration of senti- 
ments and of manners as those who, by an ill-judged edu- 
cation, have been empowered to redeem the corruptions of 
private life by the public display of imposing talent? O 
when will the world, when will the Church, learn wisdom 
from the past? Heaven knows we have had enough of phi- 
losophy without religion, of reason without conscience, and 
of education without God's Bible at the bottom of it. 

For one, I have no idea of erecting the bumps of crani- 
ology into oracles of wisdom, of unveiling the source of the 
world's evils by phrenological disclosures, or of gathering 
the secret of their cure from the transcendental nonsense 
of one of your mesmeric sleepers. Let Saul consult with 
the witch of Endor, if he will, and invoke the ghosts of a 
mystic philosophy for the revelations of truth, but never 
will the mephitic vapors that now infest the atmosphere 
with the poison of death sink to the caverns and sepulchers 
from whence they sprung until the Church, the legitimate 
patron of learning, set free from the leading-strings of 
fleshly wisdom, recognizes and acts upon the truth that the 
Bible, the only book of the soul, is also the best book for 
the intellect. The times are propitious for a change. 
Now that every earthly scheme has failed, now that derange- 



20 bishop pierce's sermons and addresses. 

ment and defeat and dismay have subdued the world into 
something like humility, let the Urim and Thummim pro- 
claim the will of God and the duty of the people. Now 
that Pharaoh and his hosts are ingulfed in the sea, let the 
armies of Israel seize the weapons that have been thrown 
upon the beach by the returning waters, and go forth to 
guard the rising generation from every foe, and locate them 
in a land illustrious with virtue's light and rich in honor's 
rewards. 

Theorists have said that knowledge and virtue are essen- 
tial to the perpetuity of freedom and the prosperity of 
the nation ; but they have connected with it the false, de- 
lusive assumption that knowledge and virtue are insepara- 
ble. Hence, a spirit of enthusiasm has gone forth on the 
subject of learning. Legislators, statesmen, editors, preach- 
ers have rivaled each other in their panegyrics on schools 
and literary institutions. A distinguished foreigner has 
said, "The school-master is abroad," and like the midnight 
watchman's cry, "All's well!" the sound has been caught 
and prolonged till well-nigh all the echoes of the earth 
have waked to give the world assurance of safety and the 
liberty of repose. 

But for the purposes of restraint knowledge is nugatory. 
There is no moral quality in intellect ; there is no moral 
power in science. While I would scout with indignation 
the doctrine that "ignorance is the mother of devotion," I 
am far from believing that learning is favorable to piety, 
unless the process by Avhich it is acquired is strictly, literally 
religious education. To develop the resources of mere mind 
is but to furnish incitements to pride, incense to vanity, fa- 
cilities to wickedness; it is to train soldiers for battle and 
provide ammunition for the war which error wages with 
truth; man's rough nature may be softened into humanity, 
and the uncouthness of his manners polished into grace; 



LEARNING AND RELIGION. 21 

the cannibal may become a man; the moral brute a rea- 
soning slave, but the same vices and the same depravity, 
modified and civilized perhaps, which belong to a more rude 
and savage state will still nestle in his heart, and leave the 
venom of their nature on every thing their snakish teeth do 
touch. 

It is true knowledge opens numerous sources of enjoy- 
ment, diminishes the dependence on the sensitive appetites, 
and invests human nature with a glory well adapted to dis- 
guise the fact that there is after all no renovation of that 
nature, and that the only change is from coarse to refined, 
from loathsome wickedness to polite transgression. I hold 
that blasphemy is blasphemy, whether it drops from vulgar 
lips in negro dialect or comes in polished sentiments and 
graceful style from the tongue of the accomplished trans- 
gressor; corruption is corruption, whether found in the rags 
and tatters of an ignorant and degraded poverty, revel- 
ing in the filth of a hovel, or amid the embellishments of 
higher life, where taste lounges in splendid parlors, with 
carpets, curtains, and sofas to match; crime is crime, 
whether submerged in the ditch or washed in snow-water, 
whether drunk in the gutter or sober at the card-table. 

Who does not know that in this land of ours evils have 
circulation and character because of their association with 
taste, talents, and refinement? The most groveling pas- 
sions have been brought out from the seclusion of the dark 
retreats to which their odious character had consigned them', 
and brushed and painted and refined, have been introduced 
to society as harmless things, hitherto maligned by a sour 
godliness or exiled by a fastidious morality. Who does 
not know that after all the marchings of mind and the mul- 
tiplication of colleges, crimes have multiplied and law grown 
weak? Deeds which but a few years ago would have blasted 
character and proscribed the perpetrator forever only fur- 



22 bishop pierce's sermons and addresses. 

nish material for editorial wit and evidence of increasing 
wickedness. In the modern vocabulary, by the legerde- 
main of genius, names are no longer things, either substan- 
tially or ostensibly; breach of trust is the misfortune of 
speculation; stealing, abstraction; and the plunder of the 
Government one of the rights of the people. It is not to 
be denied that there is an increasing laxity of moral feel- 
ing and restraint in the country, and that, too, chiefly among 
those whom intellect and education have elevated to station 
and influence in society. Assuming a sort of independence 
by virtue of superior acquirements, they assert exemption 
from vulgar bonds ; and to the corruption of an example 
rapid enough in its propagation they add the momentum 
of authority, and so accelerate the ruin of the land. The 
work of degeneracy never proceeds from the lower to the 
higher classes — if I may use these words in this republican 
country — but the reverse. The poor, the ignorant, the vul- 
gar, never affect the rich, the learned, the elegant. It is 
the last who give tone to society. Exalted high, living up- 
on the mountain's top, these are they who loosen the ava- 
lanche and hurl the rushing ruin upon the vale below. 

History — ancient and modern— attests that the profound- 
est moral degradation may coexist with the highest intel- 
lectual culture. Painting, sculpture, poetry, oratory, may 
obtain their ultimatum of excellence, and their authors and 
admirers be imbruted in the bondage of the flesh, and en- 
slaved by the dominion of the senses. A man may be a 
scholar and a drunkard ; a poet and yet a ruffian in soci- 
ety; a naturalist, brooding in rapture over minerals and 
plants, and be without household feeling; an astronomer 
without devotion or the knowledge of God; a mathemati- 
cian without having numbered his days or applied his heart 
unto wisdom. "What is true of individuals is true of nations. 
Egypt, with her philosophers, her libraries, and her monu- 



LEARNING AND BELIG10X. 23 

ments, some of which yet remain to mock with their grand- 
eur the littleness of modern works, was one vast " chamber 
of imagery," where iniquity wrought its abominations. 
Greece — the land of the Muses, the birthplace of eloquence, 
of poetry, of Demosthenes and Homer, of sages whom the 
moderns yet quote, with reverence acknowledging their pre- 
eminence — with all her academies, groves, and Olympic en- 
tertainments, was superstitious, fickle, and corrupt. Rome, 
with her empire, though the depository of the learning of 
the world — learning which she enlarged, enriched, diffused 
— was, even in the Augustan age, but refined in her bar- 
barism, and abandoned to voluptuousness and crime. So- 
ciety may be roused from the night and sleep of ages, and 
all the restless faculties of the human mind released from 
their confinement may stand erect and commune with nat- 
ure's visible things, and roam in freedom earth, air, and 
sky; accumulate, diffuse, invent, discover, apply, and yet 
"mind earthly things" and " glory in their shame." 

While, therefore, I would not affirm that knowledge cor- 
rupts, it certainly does not purify ; and in its action gener- 
ates temptations, for resistance to which it provides no ade- 
quate motive, and rears, up full and impassable in the way 
no opposing authority to stop the tide destined to sweep 
down the outworks of morality. Whatever the field of its 
operations, the remark is true ; and in the absence of a con- 
trolling, counteracting moral power, all that it does to stim- 
ulate art, agriculture, commerce, is only providing fuel for 
the fire that is consuming us. As rivers are affected by the 
character of soil over which they run, so knowledge par- 
takes in its progress of the qualities of the nature on which 
it operates, and, inseparably commingled, flows on, the ve- 
hicle of its own pollutions. 

The source of all the evils that afflict humanity lies far 
beyond the reach of all legislative or educational remedies. 



24 BISHOP PIERCE'S SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

Indeed, these remedies multiply, aggravate, compound those 
calamities unless they acknowledge this fact and conform 
themselves as subordinate means to the superior instrumen- 
talities of a divine economy. Reason, in its natural or cul- 
tivated state, is impotent to restrain or to guide, to declare 
the character of God, to develop the sanctions of his gov- 
ernment, or even to preserve a revelation of his will. Mod- 
ern history exhibits a demonstrative experiment of its blind- 
ness and its perversity. The reign of reason was the reign 
of terror, torment, and wickedness, so far exceeding all 
other modes of torture and of crime that in its stead popery 
was welcomed as a blessing, and a military despotism adopt- 
ed as a refuge from its enormities. Philosophy, with its 
scholastic theories, and deep speculations, and subtle meta- 
physics, has no power to bind the strong man, no authority 
to enforce her opinions; and, if she have a heart to mourn 
at all, is doomed to the anguish of one who, standing upon 
the shore, gazes, incapable of affording relief, upon a dis- 
tant shipwreck. 

The prevalent system of education, the most popular 
books, even if they admit, do not insist upon, the Bible 
doctrine of depravity as a fact in the moral constitution of 
man. They take the youthful mind according to Locke's 
famous idea of its being " a blank page," not remembering 
that however destitute of ideas or ignorant of words, ac- 
cording to the word of God it is fearfully blurred and 
blotted; that whatever the character of the education, the 
moral truths communicated will have to wrestle with a nat- 
ure that loves to err. That the intellect is allied with a 
leprous heart — "a heart deceitful above all things, and des- 
perately wicked " — appears in every stage of life and every 
condition of society. Yet, the books that are used in our in- 
stitutions — the mental and the moral philosophies — deal with 
man as if ignorauce of science, of government, and of his 



LEARNING AND BELIGIOX. 25 

own intellectual capacities, were the only evil of his nature, 
and school instruction the only salvation that he needed. 
The obligations of morality as inculcated are presumed to 
arise from civil relations — from the artificial and changing 
modes and aspects of society — and are enforced by mere 
prudential reasons of business, economy, and character. 
Hence, virtue is made to vary in the elevation of its stand- 
ard and the amount of its exactions with latitude and longi- 
tude, with city or country, with the comparative wealth or 
poverty, station or obscurity of the people. From such a 
course, variable in its nature, inadequate in motive, and 
limited in range, w T hat nobleness of mind, what purity of 
heart, what reward of usefulness, can be expected ? 

If the Christianity of the Bible be the basis of every 
excellence, the subsistence of every virtue ; if it follow r man 
into the domestic circle, the fellowship of the Church, the 
community of the country, the citizenship of the world, 
why not at once initiate the young mind into its doctrines, 
mysteries, and duties? If foolishness be bound up in the 
heart of a child, if it go astray from the womb speaking 
lies, if the elements of all corruption are to be found in 
every bosom, and if the experiment made for five thousand 
years demonstrates the incapacity of all merely human 
means to purify, restrain, or renew, why pertinaciously ad- 
here to the system as if wisdom and obstinacy were synony- 
mous, and experience a lying oracle ? Why rely upon the 
nostrums of an intellectual empiricism when we have a 
sovereign panacea? Why deal with man in one view of 
his nature, and that the most important, one day in seven, 
and then expend the care and labor of six on subordinate 
interests, which derive all their significance and value from 
their relations to the first? 

We were not sent into the world to draw diagrams and 
to prove that any two sides of a triangle are greater than 



26 bishop pierce's sebmoxs and addresses. 

a third side, nor to find the roots of verbs, nor to walk in 
admiring wonder through botanic gardens, nor to classify 
the minerals of the earth, nor to count and name the stars 
of heaven. Important as these may be — and far be it from 
me to undervalue them — a man may be saved as well with- 
out as with them. Nor do they make men temperate or 
honest or kind ; nor are they indispensable qualifications for 
the necessary duties of life. They are relative and subor- 
dinate, and in the absence of moral principles and religious 
knowledge minister to individual pride and social corrup- 
tion quite as often as to purity and virtue. 

It is true — and this consideration serves to obscure the 
facts I am stating — that those evils which connect themselves 
with the intellect are not so alarming or odious as those that 
belong to the flesh. In the one case the mode of operation 
is understood by all — the results are seen, felt, deplored; in 
the other, insidious and fatal, because unseen and unsus- 
pected. As the subtle and noxious vapors of the morass 
mingle with the atmosphere, are inhaled along with the 
vital air, and are detected only by their perilous effects on 
health and life, so error and impurity blend with the feel- 
ings and sentiments of mankind, and often indicate their 
existence only by the obstructions they offer to truth and 
righteousness. If, then, these sources of action are left to 
the corruption of active but invisible agencies, no marvel 
if in after days, like the lightning of heaven, they flash 
into revelation only to scathe and to kill. The temptations 
that attend the ascent to mental illumination, to intellectual 
power — operating upon the feebleness of a nature round 
which no guard has been stationed, and whose weakness no 
reinforcements of principle have forfeited — will be sure to 
push the battle beyond the gates, and quarter their attend- 
ant troops of evil for life. 

If education be worth its time and its expense — and who 



LEARNING AND RELIGION. 27 

doubts it — why not make it yield in kind as well as quan- 
tity according to its capacity? If the garden be worth 
cultivation, why not inclose it? To plow, to sow without 
a fence, is but to jeopard the maturity of the crop or to 
rear a harvest for waste and destruction. To impart knowl- 
edge, to refine taste, to rouse the imagination, to stimulate 
ambition, without directing all by the authority and influ- 
ence of Christianity to the great moral end of our creation, 
is but to furnish tools for the devil and kindle a fire for him 
to work by ; it is to give him a Paixhan gun to fight with, 
while morality is doomed to depend upon an Indian bow 
and arrow. It is an affront to reason as well as to theology 
to assume that there can be any other foundation to virtue 
than the fear and the love of God. The education, there- 
fore, which does not inculcate these of design, habitually 
and earnestly, leaves the pupil to the choice of immorali- 
ties, to be determined by temperament and circumstances. 
The love of reputation, respect to parental authority, an 
honorable ambition, may all combine to modify the expres- 
sion of depravity, but they leave that depravity unsubdued 
to work its perilous effects in the safe lodgment of an unen- 
lightened and carnal heart. All the considerations that 
earth can furnish to incline man to morality, unless subor- 
dinate to the higher reasons set forth in revelation, operate 
disastrously, whether they succeed or fail. In their success 
they graft upon the native stock of human pride a self- 
complacent delusion, fatal to right convictions of sin, and 
therefore excluding "the highest style of man;" in their 
failure they surrender man to the ambuscade of corruption 
without warning and without defense. 

To occupy the right ground upon this subject is the more 
important because there is a natural tendency in us — one, 
too, promoted and justified, as the world supposes, by appar- 
ent reasons — to believe that in the progress of society, of 



28 bishop pierce's sermons and addresses. 

science, of government, there must be a corresponding 
change in our nature itself. Hence we hear so much of 
illumination and freedom as the great conservative elements 
of character. It is argued that a free people must be hap- 
py, that an enlightened people must be virtuous. There is 
partial, comparative truth in these propositions, and upon 
the credit of what cannot be denied they have passed into 
republican axioms. Schools and colleges are regarded as 
the bulwarks of our land, the pledge of the perpetuity of 
our political institutions, and the guard against any en- 
croachment of " the powers that be." All this may be, and 
yet the very wisdom of legislation, as it respects the diffu- 
sion of intelligence and the development of the nation's re- 
sources, will promote other evils and accelerate ruin in the 
absence of the restraints of religion and that moral balance 
of power that is to be found only in the belief of the inspired 
records. Why is not the voice of history regarded on this 
subject? Our mechanical improvements, our works of art, 
our discoveries of science, may all survive our political in- 
stitutions, for these depend upon the private virtue of the 
citizens, upon the prevalence of right sentiments as it re- 
relates to God and the Bible. There are no elements of 
perpetuity, no imperishable principles of virtue, apart from 
revealed religion. The sacred Scriptures are the only rule 
of faith and practice. All other standards are defective, 
variable, and doubtful. To neglect the Scriptures, then, 
to refuse them precedence in the order of time, to separate 
and cull, is to diminish conviction of their value, and to 
give countenance and prominence to antagonistic principles 
injurious at best, and fatal when allowed to occupy the 
vantage-ground. 

There has been a change for the better in the last few 
years. Denominational colleges constitute an era in litera- 
ture and religion, and were it not that thev are vet ruodi- 



LEARNING AND RELIGION ' $9 



fied in their internal policy by respect to prejudices the 
most foolish and absurd, they would have exhibited su'ih 
ocular and palpable proofs in attestation of the value of 
the Bible as a book of instruction that they would have 
converted the doubts of the skeptical into faith and the 
fears of the timid into rejoicing. As it is, though not so 
decidedly religious in all respects as they might and ought 
to be, they have greatly diminished the dangers attendant 
upon a collegiate career. The fact that an institution is un- 
der the patronage and control of an ecclesiastical body, that 
its trustees are pious men, its president a minister of the 
gospel, and its professors members of the Church, does not, 
whatever facilities for it these circumstances and agencies 
afford, necessarily secure a thoroughly religious education. 

If our duty is to be determined by the value of religion 
and the absolute wants of the human mind, if the results 
of partial experiments are allowed to indicate the adapta- 
tion of Christianity to promote whatever is desirable in 
order, character, and destiny, then does it seem to me as 
plain as daylight that Sabbath-school instruction, as now 
understood, should be incorporated with all our common 
schools as an integral part of education. The Catechism 
and the Bible ought to be among the first books put into 
the pupil's hands. The first in importance, let them occupy 
the same rank in the order of instruction, and not by crim- 
inal delay obliquely insinuate that other things are entitled 
to preference. The truths that are left to be gathered up 
incidentally are not likely to impress with such vividness 
and permanency as when received through a deliberate and 
serious communication. Reading, writing, and arithmetic 
can never impress upon the moral powers the right direc- 
tion, nor fortify the heart against the assaults of temptation 
or the seduction of ungodly example. The government of 
the family, the regulation of the academy, ought all to be 



30 BISHOP PIERCE'S SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

based upon this fundamental fact: that the saving knowl- 
edge of God is emphatically "the one thing needful." Car- 
ry out the plan ; graduate the instruction by the progress, 
the age, the circumstances of the scholar; take it up from 
the primary department to the college, the university, and 
let the whole course from the spelling-book to a diploma be 
sanctified " by the word of God and prayer." Let the Bi- 
ble be the nucleus of knowledge, the central point, radiat- 
ing its own blessed light over the whole range of learning 
and of literature. The youth of the land should be taught 
its history, its chronology, its geography, its evidences, its 
doctrines, and its ethics. It is folly to call that religious 
education which has no fact to justify the appellation other 
than morning and evening prayers. The other exercises 
on which reliance is placed belong to them, not in the char- 
acter of students, but as citizens, and lack that distinctness 
of aim, that personality of direction as to class, for which we 
plead and on which we insist as the only legitimate and authen- 
ticated instrument of successful operation. It will never do 
to leave the necessary knowledge of the religion of Christ to 
the presumptuous hope of a providential interposition while 
Ave forego the appropriate means of communication, to the 
probabilities of a revival in the community where the col- 
lege is located, or to the resurrection of the impression cas- 
ually made in the scholastic career. The foundation must 
be laid by lesson upon lesson, seriously given and affection- 
ately enforced. 

It has been the policy to repose the hopes of society, as 
far as they were connected with the plastic influences of 
education, upon the inculcation of morality. But this does 
not meet the exigencies of the case, even though the Chris- 
tian code itself be adopted. The efficiency of revealed re- 
ligion resides not in its morals, as some vainly suppose, but 
in its doctrines and motives. Pure, divine as the precepts of 



LEARNING AND RELIGION. 31 

the Bible are, they are jDowerless when dissevered from " the 
mount that burned with fire" and the cross that streamed 
with blood. Associated with these and with the terrors of 
that conflagration that shall veil even yonder sun with the 
intensity of its glare, and the revelation of that doom that 
hangs upon the lips of eternal judgment, then they come 
with an authority so imposing, venerable, and awful as well- 
nigh to compel reverence and homage. The duties of re- 
ligion derive their force from no worldly consideration, no 
prudential policy ; and they who rest them upon these, con- 
sign them to neglect, if not contempt. If we believe Chris- 
tianity to be what our creeds maintain and our professions 
affirm, let us see to it that we spurn that policy of compro- 
mise and exclusion which gratifies its hostility to the pecul- 
iar verities of revelation under cover of a just abhorrence 
of an intriguing sectarianism. How long shall an ungodly 
world prescribe to a Christian community the measure of 
their duty and the character of their efforts? How long 
shall conscience be reconciled to a partial and defective ar- 
rangement for meeting our whole responsibility by alleging 
in justification the prejudices of those whom we are under 
no obligation to consult? The characteristics of freedom, 
vigor, activity will scarce ever broadly attach to an experi- 
ence of grace itself unless it is based upon an intelligent 
apprehension of the remedial economy of our holy religion. 
This is important, if not essential, to give tone, strength, 
elevation, stability to experience, and to redeem the pro- 
fession of it from the reproach of being the mere enthusi- 
asm of ignorant impulses. But there may be high attain- 
ments in philosojmy ; intimate knowledge of letters, of law, 
of human nature, of the principles of government, and yet 
the mind remain intensely dark on the great and leading 
doctrines of revelation. The doctrinal terms of theology 
and the pulpit shall convey to such a mind either no dis- 



32 BISHOP PIE RCE'S SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

tinct ideas or ideas so perverse as utterly to neutralize the 
truth. To one who has not given special observation to 
this subject, the ignorance of many enlightened men, if dis- 
closed, would be perfectly astounding, and constitutes, in 
my humble opinion, one among the many reasons — and that 
not the least — of their indifference and lethargy. To neglect 
the legitimate means of information is not only to fail of 
our duty, but to create a palpable obstruction to future con- 
version. 

By what sort of reasoning has it been found out that one 
class of men demand a particularity of instruction upon 
the entire system of religion, and that the disclosure and 
enforcement of all often fail to reform or redeem, and yet 
that we are authorized to hope for better results from a par- 
tial course ; that the weight which has resisted the lever and 
the pulley can be lifted by the finger? Are not those who 
frequent our college-halls personally responsible to God, 
and as such legitimate subjects on whom to operate by 
the whole apparatus of gospel means and motives? Is 
it not an intolerant interference with the rights, liberties, 
and interests of this class of society for any authority, 
whether of person, prejudice, or opinion, to consign them 
for a term of years to a sort of compulsory neutrality, which 
the Christian teacher must not invade by the demonstration 
of argument or the excitement of a tender appeal? 

The things that are revealed belong to us and our chil- 
dren by divine bequest ; and to preclude them from the in- 
heritance for any reason is an infraction of the Eternal Will. 
Not to teach them is infidelity to our trust as guardians on 
a plea of a minority that will not be recognized and sus- 
tained in the decisions of the last day. The time, the mode 
of teaching the truths of salvation should carry along with 
them the conviction of their title to precedence and the pre- 
eminence of their importance. Let doctrine be taught ; it is 



LEARNING AND RELIGION. 



no sectarianism. If it be, it is obedience to a divine behest ; 
and let those who complain settle the controversy with the 
Almighty. It is no more denominational intrigue to press 
religion upon the college-boy than upon his worldly-minded 
sire. Nor would I limit the range of instruction to the points 
on which orthodox Churches agree, but would extend it 
over the whole field of theology as found in the sacred 
canon. It is as inadmissible for the professor's trump to 
give an uncertain sound as for the watchman's on the walls 
of Zion. 

And if a Methodist interpretation of the Bible be adopt- 
ed in a Methodist college, who ought to be surprised ? There 
is no deception ; the charter, the board of trust, the name, 
all proclaim the character of the institution. There need 
be no debate about the right of search ; we ride upon the 
high seas, engage in lawful business, carry but one flag, and 
fling that to the wind and the sunshine. We neither im- 
press nor proselyte, and if the officers can make abiding 
friends of the passengers by courtesy and usefulness, who 
dare reproach us with being selfish intriguants? Let us, 
then, teach the doctrine, apply the motives, and enforce the 
morals of the Inspired Volume, and the annual revolutions 
of time's wheel shall evolve from these literary retreats 
virtuous citizens if not pious saints. As the tree of knowl- 
edge was the original instrument of temptation, let us re- 
member in all our aspirations after learning that, as the 
society of the world approximates nearer and nearer to 
that state when men are governed by opinion rather than 
by law, it becomes more and more necessary that the proc- 
ess of education should become a living organism, instinct 
with the spirit and power of our holy religion. 

He who is best educated for the world to come is best 
educated for the world that now is. I would not displace 
any book necessary to be known, I would not substitute the 
3 



34 bishop pierce's sermons axd addresses. 

Bible for every thing else, but I would have it the ground- 
work and companion of the whole course. "We talk of the 
expansive power of other studies, of their discipline, their 
scope, and their elevation; and true it is that the mind 
grows dwarfish or gigantic according to the subjects with 
which it is familiar. If, then, you w T ould set to your seal 
and give the world assurance of a man, set him to span the 
disclosures of revelation, scale the altitudes of eternal truth, 
explore the depths of Infinite Wisdom, and soar amid the 
glories of immortality unveiled and spiritual, and then he 
shall descend, like Moses from the mount, radiant with the 
light of high communion. In the treasured volume lies not 
only the mystery of mysteries, but in it. is the oldest history — 
history past, present, and to come — poetry alive, breathing, 
bounding ; philosophy condensed but comprehensive, deep but 
clear, profound but intelligible. We wander with the geol- 
ogist, book in hand, all delight; look upon the surface, dig 
through some few strata of the earth ; enter some dark and cu- 
rious caverns ; scan the precipitous banks of some rushing 
torrent as it hastens to its ocean home; but this Book plants 
us amid the angel groups as they gaze upon the laying of 
the corner-stone of this material temple, and poises us over 
the heaving abyss where creative power is energizing, and 
wraps us in wonder and praise as the choral song of the 
morning-stars breaks upon the cradled slumbers of the new- 
born world. We talk of the illustrious discoveries of sci- 
ence, and disport among stars and suns and systems; stand 
upon the outposts of telescopic vision, awe-struck with the 
amplitude of our range; but this Book stretches infinitudes 
beyond the orbits of astronomy, and, leaving all calcula- 
tion and measurement behind, dooms imagination itself to 
fold its wings in weariness; opens faith's interior eye; un- 
rolls the scenery of judgment; sweeps off our terrestrial 
habitation, and the planetary glories that now bestud our 



LEARNING AND RELIGION. 



sky ; reorganizes the dust of the sepulcher ; bids a new crea- 
tion rise; redeemed man rejoice, heaven his home and eter- 
nity his life-time. 

O tell me if a Book like that can be read and studied 
without a quickening impulse, without expansive views, 
without an upward, onward motion. As well might the 
flowers sleep when spring winds her merry horn to call 
them from their wintry bed. As well might the sunbeam 
lie folded in the curtains of night when "the king of day 
comes rejoicing in the east." As well might the exhala- 
tions of the ocean linger upon its bosom when the sun beck- 
ons them to the thunder's home. Away, away forever with 
the heresy that the Bible fetters intellect! It is the oracle 
of all intelligence, the charter of our rights, " the day-spring 
from on high." What was the reformation but the resur- 
rection of the Bible? Cloistered in monastic seclusion, it 
lay for a thousand years hidden, silent, and degraded. The 
dense vapors that went up from the fens of papal corrup- 
tion shrouded in deep eclipse the lore of the world, and 
men groped in the gloom of a long and awful night. In- 
tellect, smitten from its pride of place, fell cowering in 
abject servility at the footstool of power. Superstition 
shackeled the multitude, and the spirit of liberty slept be- 
neath its wizard spell. Opinion, panic-stricken by the thun- 
ders of the Vatican, hushed its trumpet-tones and left the 
empire of mind to darkness and to Home. But lo ! in the 
cycle of years a change. The genius of Luther evoked the 
Bible from its retreat to disenchant the nations. It came, 
and breathing upon the valley of vision, its dishonored 
relics lived. It looked upon the sleeping sea, and the ice- 
bound waters melted beneath its glance. When from her 
dungeon gloom imprisoned Europe cried, " Watchman, what 
of the night?" the watchman said, " The morning cometh." 
The ghosts of a mystic th~eology fled from the spreading 



36 JUSHOP PIERCE'S SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

day. The gloomy prejudices which had stagnated all the 
elements of enterprise let go their barbarian hold, and the 
powers which had rusted for ages in iron sleep, emancipated, 
rushed to the conflict, on the issue of which the destinies of 
the world were periled. Intellect, roused by the battle- 
shout, with new-found strength burst from its thralldom, 
forged its fetters into swords, and fought its way to freedom 
and to fame. 

Yes, it was the Bible which presided over the revival of 
letters and unrolled the manuscripts of ancient wisdom for 
the perusal of the nations ; it was the Bible that unlocked 
the prison-doors of knowledge and bid her go forth to teach 
the people their dignity and their rights ; it was the Bible 
that wrenched from the reeking jaws of a ravenous usur- 
pation the bleeding form of mangled liberty, and restored 
her to the earth, healed and sound, a blessing and a guardian. 
When in after years denied a home by the despotic mon- 
archies of the Old World, these ancient companions braved 
the wide Atlantic's roar, and together sought a refuge in 
these Western wilds. Let the Bible keep alive the spirit of 
liberty among the people and the spirit of reverence for 
God, and the republic is safe. Let lawless violence, or 
reasons of State, or an intriguing infidelity sequester the 
Holy Volume, forbid it to walk upon the unquiet sea of 
human passions, and the last hope of patriots and the 
world is gone. This young republic, smitten in the green- 
ness of her years, shall be stretched to the gaze of nations 
a livid corpse, the scorn of kings, and none so poor as to 
do her reverence. 

Hear me, my country ! hear me for your honor and your 
perpetuity ! Have done with your idolatry of patriotism, 
of talent, of government — your dependence on men and 
wealth and power ! Away with your jealousy of the Bible, 
its influences and its institutions! Christianity is the vital 



LEARNING AND RELIGION. 37 

spirit of the republic, the richest treasure of a generous 
people, the salt of our learning, and the bond of our union. 
Send religion and education in indissoluble wedlock to 
traverse the land in its length and breadth ; let the mother 
teach the Bible to her daughters, the father to his sons, the 
school-master to his pupils, the professor to his class, the 
preacher to his congregation. Let the people read it by 
the morning's dawn and at evening's holy hour. Let the 
light of it gleam from the sanctuary, the college, the acad- 
emy, and the private dwelling, then will glory dwell in our 
midst, and the light of salvation overlay the land " as the 
morning spread upon the mountains." 



Kkrdi Meges * 



AS a Georgian, as a Methodist, as a friend of education, 
I rejoice in the enterprise which convenes us to-day. 
It is an atonement for the past and a prophecy of the 
future. Night — a long, dark night — from whose sky, amid 
careering clouds, hope let fall a dubious, trembling ray, has 
overhung the fortunes of Emory College. But the cere- 
monies of this occasion herald the morning — a morning 
whose ascending sun, streaming in full-orbed effulgence, 
shall know, I trust, in future years neither eclipse nor de- 
cline. 

I rejoice too in the coincidence which unites this event 
with a day memorable and hallowed in the annals of our 
country — commemorative alike of the immortal Washing- 
ton's infant wail and Buena Vista's battle thunder. 

A Georgia audience — Americans all — will pardon me if 
I turn aside from the more direct and legitimate object of 
the occasion to pay a passing tribute to the illustrious Wash- 
ington, " the father of his country " — a title which he more 
richly deserves than any man, living or dead, who ever wore 
the honor. 

Since I came to years and learned to think for myself, I 
have been amazed at the prevalent opinion which regards 
Washington as a good rather than a great man. The popu- 
lar idea that he was an intelligent farmer, a prudent gener- 
al, and an incorruptible patriot, is praise — high praise — but 

*This address was delivered in Oxford, Georgia, February 22, 
1852, on the occasion of laying the corner-stone of a new colkge- 
building. The speaker was then president of the college. — Editor. 
(38) 



C HUEC II COLLEGES. 39 

far below the merits of the man. It is well that the moral 
sense of the people compels them to do homage to virtue 
and goodness, and to award the meed of an unequaled fame 
to the chief who prayed to God while he fought the battles 
"of his country, and who resisted the charms of power when 
a nation bowed before him in admiration of his achieve- 
ments. But presiding over the moral excellences of the 
man, the patriotism of the soldier, the integrity of the civil- 
ian, there was an intellect vast, varied, and prophetic. His 
opinions were judicious, distinguished by their breadth, sa- 
gacity, and strength; his "letters weighty and powerful;" 
and his "Farewell Address" a treasury of wisdom, a polit- 
ical chart, a national amulet. Let the people read it; it is 
an antidote to the degeneracy of the times. Let the offi- 
cers of government study it; it is a guide to duty amid 
the perils of party strife. Let our statesmen — North, South, 
East, and West — imbibe its spirit, and the sectionalism which 
threatens the unity of the republic will hide its Gorgon 
head, and its Babel tongue be heard no more in the coun- 
cils of the nation. The time is coming when that docu- 
ment will be regarded as the offspring of a mind on which, 
while yet illumined by the lights of the past, the unrisen 
sun of a future century was beaming. 

Appropriate on its first presentation, its value increases 
with the lapse of years and the progress of commerce and 
knowledge and liberty. Adherence to its doctrines will be 
the cement of the L^nion, and give perpetuity to republican 
government. It was a patriot's legacy to the American 
people; and let Washington's policy interpret Washington's 
opinion. Mount Vernon's sage needs not the Hungarian* 
expounder with his dulcet tongue to teach his countrymen 

* Kossuth, the Hungarian patriot and revolutionist, visited the 
United States in 1851-52. and in many cities made addresses which 
were greatly applauded. — Editou. 



40 bishop pierce's sermons axd addresses. 

their duty. He loved us well and taught us wisely. We 
understand him. I pray Heaven that our great men may 
not forsake the steady light of his oracular wisdom for the 
delusive glare of Kossuth's eloquence. Intoxicated by the 
adulation of England and the United States, the Magyar 
dreams of the eventful future, and his " counsel is foolish- 
ness," his policy madness. Enthroned in the admiration of 
the world, without a peer in the history of men, consecrated 
by death, Washington's words survive him, instinct with 
truth, a pillar of fire in the political firmament, the guard- 
ian of our freedom, and the index of our destiny. Let his 
monument rise; "we ne'er shall look upon his like again." 
Dig deep, lift it high ; " call marble honor from its caverned 
bed;" bring granite, copper, brass, and gold; "grave with 
an iron pen and lead in the rock forever" his name, his 
deeds — his worthy deeds — and let the generations to come 
know there icas a man, Geoege Washington. 

We have met to lay the corner-stone of Emory College 
— a Methodist institution, under the supervision of the 
Georgia Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, South — created and sustained by the voluntary 
contributions of the Methodist people and the friends and 
adherents of the Methodist Church in Georgia. 

Preliminary to the present state of the facts, however, 
there is a history, brief but interesting — interesting as it 
shows the state of the public mind twenty years ago, and 
indicates the progress of opinion and enterprise since that 
period. 

In the winter of 1832 and 1833 the Georgia Annual 
Conference held its session in La Grange, Troup county. 
We were visited by the Rev. John Early, from Virginia, 
and the Rev. Wm. McMahon, from Tennessee — the first as 
agent for Randolph-Macon College, and the last as agent 
for La Grange College. Virginia proposed to Georgia to 



CHURCH COLLEGES. 41 

endow a professorship — price, twenty thousand dollars — in 
Kandolph-Macon College. It was assumed and expected 
that patronage in the way of students would follow this 
investment. Tennessee proposed nothing very specific, but 
would be glad of our countenance and encouragement — 
perhaps would like permission to circulate an agent through 
our territory to levy contributions both of money and stu- 
dents. The rival agents each presented his case and its 
claims. Location, climate, the relation of the States, the 
comparative advantages of neighborhood and distance, were 
all duly discussed. I shall never forget how the grave and 
courtly old Virginian was annoyed by the raillery and hu- 
mor of his competitor from the West, The discussion 
ended; the Conference adjourned. No positive promises 
were made, no specific pledges were given. But a new idea 
had been thrown into our midst. It was a living idea, ca- 
pable of growth, expansion, and destined to a glorious de- 
velopment. Like the grain of mustard-seed in our Saviour's 
parable, there was in it a living principle, a vital element. 
It germinated, grew, waxed strong, became a great tree, and 
our children and children's children will feed on its fruits 
and be refreshed by its shadow. But I anticipate. 

The Conference held its next session at Washington, 
Wilkes county. Bishop Emory — from whom the college 
takes its name — presided. We were visited by Dr. Olin, 
recently elected President of Randolph-Macon College. He 
came to renew the proposition of the Virginia brethren, to 
urge its acceptance upon the Conference, and to have an 
agent appointed to give it practical form and execution. 
The subject was introduced in open Conference, in the pres- 
ence of numerous auditors. Olin, with his great mind — 
and there have been few, if any, of more colossal propor- 
tions in this great country — introduced the topic. He 
brought his mighty powers to bear with an intensity of zeal, 



42 bishop pierce's sebmoxs axd addresses. 

an enthusiasm of interest, perfectly overwhelming. Con- 
viction followed his reasonings, persuasion his appeals. When 
he concluded, and the Conference was ready to carry the 
proposal by acclamation — to vote him, with uplifted hands, 
every thing he asked, and even more — to the surprise of 
most and the merriment of some, a grave brother (the Eev. 
Allen Turner) rose in opposition. My old friend will par- 
don me if I say the general impression was there would be 
no fight, or at most a very unequal combat. But if he 
lacked any thing in the shape of mental jDower, he made it 
up in resolution. He squared himself for the conflict, and 
with an unblanched trow, and his lance in rest, bore down 
on his formidable opponent. " Long time," though not in 
even or doubtful " scale, the battle hung." The spell of a 
glorious intellect was upon every judgment. The victory 
was gained before the war began. Olin carried the day, 
but, as I now believe, Turner had the best of the argument. 
He took the ground that we ought not to go into this Ran- 
dolph-Macon arrangement; that Georgia needed a college 
of her own — ought to have it, must have it, would have it; 
that the people were ready for it, and that we were inju- 
diciously forestalling ourselves by collecting so large an 
amount from our people for a distant institution. Fortu- 
nately or unfortunately, these views did not prevail. It 
might be a question whether this preliminary movement, 
this discussion and agitation, were not necessary to arouse, 
deepen, and expand the conviction of the public mind as to 
the importance of denominational education. If so, the re- 
sults are worth the twenty thousand dollars we paid in 
advance. If not, let Turner have the credit of his fore- 
sight and heroism. 

Simultaneously with these movements the Manual Labor 
School was projected. It was proposed to raise fifty thou- 
sand dollars, and the Rev. John Howard was appointed 



CHVRCH COLLEGES. 43 

agent. The manual labor system proved to be exceed- 
ingly popular. It was the very idea, harmonizing public 
sentiment in two very important particulars. It was to 
cheapen education and teach literary men to work. Pol- 
ished minds in robust bodies, this was the doctrine. Ora- 
tors rang the changes upon it. It was set to music, and the 
common ear drank in the balmy sound. A new era was 
about to dawn on society. The whole tribe of gentlemen 
loafers were to be superseded and substituted by a nobler 
genus, and the poor were to be elevated by bringing educa- 
tion within the reach of all who were willing to work to 
pay for their bread. 

Coincident with these changes the deposits had been re- 
moved;* the "pet banks," as the politicians called them, 
were chosen ; they were stimulated to expand their issues ; 
the surplus revenue was distributed ; the seasons were pros- 
perous, money was plenty ; the people were liberal, and it 
verily seemed as if "the golden age" and the age of letters 
had come together, a compound blessing upon the United 
States in general and the State of Georgia in particular. 
The Conference, emboldened by the prospect, commenced 
its arrangements for a college. A charter for "Emory 
College" was obtained, trustees appointed, an agent sent 
out, a faculty organized ; lands were bought, houses built, 
stock and farming utensils provided, and we launched on the 
tide of what promised to be a successful experiment. The 
system was fine, the theory beautiful. Everybody believed 
in it, everybody admired — except the boys who were to 
do the labor — but somehow the scheme would not work. 
The farm failed in its products, expenses increased, debts 
accrued, embarrassments accumulated, and by and by, like 
mariners in a storm when they throw the cargo overboard 

*The allusion is to what was known as the "bank war" during 
the second term of President Jackson's administration. — Editor. 



44 bishop pierce's sermons and addresses. 

to save the ship, the trustees were compelled to disencum- 
ber the experiment from its unnatural appendages to save 
it from violent, utter explosion. 

And here began our troubles ; nor did they come alone. 
A monetary crisis came on, the banks suspended, cotton 
fell, the commerce and prosperity of the country -were pros- 
trated, the oldest institutions of the land were shaken to 
their foundations, bankruptcy swept over the people, and 
amid the upheavals and convulsions of the times ruin 
threatened every enterprise. Many who had subscribed 
a thousand dollars to our beloved institution were dead, and 
their estates insolvent. Others had broken, and gathering 
the fragments together, like the prodigal son, had taken 
their journey into a far country. Yet others refused to 
pay because the manual labor feature was abandoned, al- 
leging that their obligations were thereby annulled. A per- 
fect caravan of misfortunes came up from the wilderness 
and encamped upon the garden of our hopes. Trampled, 
blasted, wasted, scarce a rose was left upon its stem to tell 
where once the garden stood. All was paralyzed, dead, 
except our debts. They were alive and clamorous for pay- 
ment, principal and interest. The trustees had every thing 
to do and nothing to do with. 

That the institution lived at all is just one of those prob- 
lems in history which can be solved only by reference to 
the will of Heaven and the self-denial of those men who, in 
the days of its darkness and trial, generously, magnani- 
mously bore its burdens. Emory College was not born to 
die. It is an amaranthine plant. There are seeds which, 
cast upon the ground or thrown upon the waters, soon rot 
and sink and disappear. It is so with many a worldly 
scheme. Springing from a solitary mind, men greet it 
coldly. It finds no fitting lodgment, no gentle nurture, no 
fostering kindness ; it droops, grows old and obsolete. The 



CHURCH COLLEGES. 45 

thought dies. Oblivion claims its relics. No mourner 
visits the grave to commune with the departed. It is not 
so with the efforts of Christian philanthropy. Our Sunday- 
schools, missionary societies, and educational enterprises are 
not the lucky thoughts of a sagacious man, the well-meant 
purposes of fallible humanity. No; but the inspiration of 
God, the suggestion of the Eternal Spirit. And they are 
under the guidance of a wisdom infinite and infallible, and 
the protection of a power unwearied and exhaustless. We 
are but instruments, and in our labors there will always be 
enough of infirmity and weakness to conceal the effective 
hand and hide pride from man. But do the right deed; 
do it in faith ; commit it by prayer to the care of Heaven, 
and fear no evil. Untoward circumstances may attend it, 
disaster come, defeat threaten. No matter. See yonder 
little ark of bulrushes on the banks of the Nile? Within, 
in innocence and beauty, sleeps a child — an infant of three 
months, but the victim of persecution. A mother's heart, 
trusting in God, has committed it to the unconscious waters 
— more pitiful than Pharaoh's bloody decree. Yet, there 
lay the future leader of the hosts of Israel, the King of 
Jeshuruu, the Lawgiver of Christendom. 

There are seeds which the Bible significantly calls bread 
— not because they are bread, but they contain that which 
in due time will make it. Thrown upon the waters — an 
uncongenial element — they may drift to and fro, now buried 
by the billow, anon floating upon the surface ; at last strand- 
ed upon the shore, they find a generous soil; nourished by 
the sunbeam and the dew, the harvest waves in green and 
gold, and there are "seed for the sower, and bread for the 
eater." So when honest, God-fearing, truth-loving, philan- 
thropic men combine and plan for the weal of the world, to 
dare is to do, to do is to succeed. Truth is eternal, and the 
thought which embodies or appropriates it will live forever. 



43 BISHOP PIERCES SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

The seed will grow; the plant will thrive; the fruit will 
ripen ; the blade, the stem, the ear — bud, blossom, and ma- 
turity — all "in due season, if we faint not." If this enter- 
prise had been projected for denominational aggrandize- 
ment, for the world's applause, " the honor that cometh to 
men," then verily it had died. No earth-born scheme could 
have found an Ararat in such a deluge of trouble. There 
was a time when the trustees had no coffer but prayer, no 
resource but faith, no encouragement but hope. Yet, Em- 
ory lives — lives and prospers. 

And now, making all due allowance for mistakes in finan- 
cial policy, for errors of judgment, for mismanagement 
if you please, for occasional misdemeanors among the stu- 
dents, I am bold here, in the presence of a community who 
know the history of the past as well as I, or better, to 
assert and maintain that Emory College has already ful- 
filled all the reasonable calculations of sober wisdom. Ay, 
all the rational, consistent hopes of sanguine piety. Let us 
refer to the records. 

The first class graduated in July, 1841 ; the last, of course, 
in 1851 — ten classes, averaging fifteen and a little over in 
numbers. One hundred and fifty-jive young men have passed 
from these humble halls with the diplomas of the institu- 
tion to take their places in the world's arena. Of the whole 
number sixteen are ministers of the gospel, three of them 
missionaries on our Pacific coast (a notable fact — let the 
Church mark it: our poor colleges supplying the mission- 
ary field) ; forty are engaged in teaching — some as professors 
in colleges, others as principals in institutes and academies, 
and yet others in the common schools of the land.* Some 

*1885. The alumni number 743; the preachers, teachers, law- 
yers, and doctors are numbered by hundreds; the college has fur- 
nished five missionaries to China, one to Mexico, and scores to the 
West. — Editor. 



CHURCH COLLEGES. 47 

have gone to agriculture, and thus add to the moral and 
intellectual force of a large class of our fellow-citizens. 
The professions of law and medicine have shared in the 
distribution; and but recently our alumni were to be found 
in your Senate-chamber and your House of Representa- 
tives; and to-day, when the country is depressed, the cry 
of "hard times" upon every lip, and the proof of it in 
every pocket, Emory numbers more than a hundred stu- 
dents — young men who will compare in mind, manners, 
and morals with any equal number gathered I care not 
where. Combine the facts; what more could have been 
expected? The institution has declared an ample dividend ; 
paid usurious interest on every dollar invested by the Church 
and country in her resources. There is no ground for dis- 
couragement. Let no friend of education despond. And 
especially let our brethren ponder the question : If, without 
an endowment, with insufficient buildings, irregular, uncer- 
tain income, the college has effected so much for the vari- 
ous departments of society, Avhat might she not do properly 
endowed, commodiously housed, and more extensively fur- 
nished ? 

Emory College originated in a popular necessity. It was 
demanded by the wants of the people. It was not a secta- 
rian scheme to promote denominational interests, though 
justified by the mission oi the Church, and imperiously 
necessary to the discharge of her high obligations. In these 
days of light and progress and achievement, the Christian 
community failing to occupy with her own instrumentali- 
ties that preliminary ground where opinions are formed and 
character molded, and over which it is the province of ed- 
ucation to preside, must inevitably grow imbecile, effete, 
and disreputable. This result must follow, not only because 
the accessions to her number, strength, and influence are 
cut off by her suicidal neglect, but the work of alienation 



43 bishop pierce's sermons axd addresses. 

and enfeeblenient will go on by the effect of agents without, 
either directly hostile or more virtuously active. Bigoted, 
ignorant, superstitious, such a Church would deserve her 
doom. The curse of Meroz is her legal inheritance. 

But "blessed are they who sow beside all waters." "In 
the morning" let us "sow our seed, and in the evening- 
withhold not" our "hand; for we know not whether shall 
prosper either this or that, or whether they both shall be 
alike good." While, therefore, we seek to do our duty, let 
us move understandingly, lest we "grow weary, and faint 
in our minds." 

The self-same facts which authorized and now vindicate 
this enterprise at the same time operate to limit its resources 
and circumscribe its usefulness. Education is a public ne- 
cessity. But everybody does not know it. Everybody 
does not feel it. Many do not believe the doctrine. The 
truth in the premises is to be taught. It will take time to 
propagate it. It is true that many apprehend and appreci- 
ate the value of knowledge, the importance of schools, and 
even the higher grades of scholarship. The mountain-tops 
are shining, but there is darkness in the vales below. There 
is ignorance to be enlightened, prejudices to be overcome, 
and proper views of parental duty and personal responsi- 
bility to be inculcated. The college, therefore, has not only 
to supply wants, but to correct faults ; not only to furnish 
instruction to those who feel the need of it and come to get 
it, but to increase the demand by diffusing light among the 
people. As the farmer clears the forest that he may have 
ground to make his bread or to increase his income by the 
sale of its products, so education must repel darkness, cor- 
rect error, disseminate knowledge, to multiply its friends 
and extend its patronage. This is a work of time. We 
shall fight and win full many a battle before we " conquer a 
peace." But every victory strengthens the right and weak- 



CHURCH COLLEGES. 19 

ens the wrong. We must "push the battle to the gate," 
storm the last fortress, nor rest' till the banner of light and 
truth waves the emblem of universal empire. 

Born and reared in this good old commonwealth, I love 
her soil, her institutions, and her people. Her progress de- 
lights me. Her growing cities, her improving agriculture, 
her thrift and intelligence, her buoyant steps in the path- 
way to aggrandizement and renown, as Samson said of the 
Philistine maid, "please me well." The ninth State in the 
Union in respect to population, the sixth in the area of her 
square miles, the third in the number and length of her rail- 
ways, almost equal to any in her manufacturing enterprise; 
the first, foremost, best, ahead of all her sisters in the num- 
ber and character of her seminaries of learning. But how 
came she so? Who put her into this proud position as to 
her literary institutions? It was not her legislation, not 
her politicians, not her mass-meetings or party conventions. 
No; but her Christian denominations. They began the 
work by projecting schools and colleges, circulating their 
agents among the people, answering objections, diffusing in- 
formation, and rousing to action the long dormant energies 
of the land. 

Previous to these movements there was general apathy. 
The State University languished, the town academies were 
occupied by imported teachers, and the common schools of 
the country cursed by the incumbency of a class of men 
who knew the taste of whisky better than they did orthog- 
raphy, and loved the shade of a house more than the prog- 
ress of their pupils or the interest of their patrons. The 
first quickening impulse on the inert mass, the first breath 
of life upon "the valley of dry bones," the first bold, ro- 
bust, expansive movement is to be traced to the leading 
Churches of Georgia, their Synods, Associations, and Con- 
ferences. 
4 



SO bishop Pierce's sebmoxs axd addresses. 



An impression — doubtless divine in its origin — seemed 
to pervade these religious communities that they could not 
fulfill their high vocation without occupying the entrance 
gates of life with the Bible in one hand and the text-books 
of education in the other, and thus train the rising genera- 
tion to knowledge and virtue. The Methodists, true to the 
spirit and plans of their venerable founder, marched abreast 
with the foremost in this conservative enterprise. The Rev. 
Jesse Mercer — honored be his memory and efficacious his 
example ! — by a munificent bequest endowed the Baptist Uni- 
versity which bears his name. The Presbyterians, never 
behind where learning is concerned, bestirred themselves, 
and "Oglethorpe" rose from the ground. Nor were these 
schemes effected without opposition. The friends of the 
State College were alarmed, lest these rival institutions 
should drain its patronage and alienate the confidence of 
the country. Sectarianism, priestly intrigue, Church big- 
otry, were dreaded and denounced. Mistaken men ! We 
but meant to do our duty and bless our country. Injure 
Franklin College ! We never designed or wished it. Nor 
have we done it. Yet perhaps the groundless apprehension 
itself has been useful. Her exclusive friends have been 
rallied, their zeal renewed, and the result a comparative 
revival of the institution. The old eagle has molted and 
renewed her youth. She never thrived so well. Once, 
alone in her aerie beside the rolling Oconee, she drooped, 
solitary and sad. No kindred pinion fanned the air. But 
when Oglethorpe and Mercer and Emory spread their wings 
and began to soar, she saw, and competition waked her an- 
cient ambition. Together let them rise, and blasted be the 
archer whose envious arrow plucks a feather from their 
glory ! 

The sensitiveness, the squeamish fear of some, in reference 
to the connection of the clergy and the Churches with our 



C IIUBC II COLLEGES. 51 

institutions of learning, is unnecessary and unwarranted by 
the facts of history. In every country converted by the 
gospel, the Church and the school-house have risen side by 
side, and the light of science has mingled with the light of 
revelation. It is a natural alliance ; the affinity is divine. 
God hath joined them together. Augustine, the apostle of 
England, founded the famous school of Canterbury. Chris- 
tian kings established her universities, Christian zeal en- 
dowed their fellowships. In our own country Christian 
charity created almost all our older seminaries. Christian 
minds toiled in them and for them. And every experiment 
in education which excludes religion and the teachers of 
religion, thank God, has been a failure. Jefferson tried it 
in Virginia, Girard in Pennsylvania. They are dead, and 
their plans are dead, and the surviving managers have been 
forced to open the doors of these magnificent structures for 
the Bible and prayer and religion to come in ; for these are 
the basis of discipline, the bonds of restraint, the support 
of virtue. Without them, disorder reigns, corruption grows 
apace, and the temple of learning becomes a bedlam of pas- 
sion, a sink of sin. 

The Church is the natural guardian of the minds and 
morals of the people. To enlighten, to purify, is her mis- 
sion. This is her business in the world. It is hers to teach, 
mold, and direct — not by the authority of law, but the per- 
suasion of truth ; not by the terrors of her anathema, but 
the revelation of her motives — motives august yet tender, 
future and eternal yet present and powerful. 

With joy I say it, no State in this broad Union is more 
indebted to her Christian Churches and the zeal of individ- 
ual Christians for the instrumentalities and agencies of ed- 
ucation than Georgia. The Methodists started the Georgia 
Female College — now the Wesleyan — at Macon in 1839, 
and in 1852 there are twelve chartered female colleges in 



02 BISHOP PIERCES SERMONS AXD ADDRESSES. 

the State — Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist, Episcopalian 
denominations all represented — besides the individual and 
local establishments, created to meet the necessities of par- 
ticular communities. True, some of these are yet in em- 
bryo — buildings going up ; not yet fully organized — but the 
most are in successful operation, crowded with pupils, and 
dispensing instruction to at least fifteen hundred young la- 
dies year by year. The cry is, " Still they come ! " Col- 
leges rise, and pupils flock to their halls. It is marvelous; 
without a parallel. Whence come they? Why this dispro- 
portion? The male colleges do not altogether number more 
than four hundred. Why is this? They are well located, 
easy of access, involve less expense. What means this ine- 
quality? Is it merely the fashion of the times? a parental 
mania? female ambition? or have the young men of the 
day been seized with the love of pleasure or gold, and de- 
termined that money is better than knowledge, and pastime 
more to be desired than scholastic honors ? Or, is it that 
parental authority is surrendered, and the beardless youths 
of the land, disliking the confinement and tedium of study, 
and longing for the freedom of the world, are allowed to 
choose for themselves ? I am afraid the satirical remark of 
a shrewd and observing friend when he said he "would give 
a thousand dollars to see a sixteen-year-old boy" has in it 
more of truth than censoriousness. There are but too many 
Eli's in the land, whose sons make themselves independent 
and criminal, and they " restrain them not." Sons go to 
college if they like, quit if they please, change if they will, 
and many, very many, decline the pursuit of knowledge, 
and rush prematurely into the business and relations of 
active life. "Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a 
child!" 

But after all these institutions, male and female, are doing 
a mighty work. For the present it is vast ; for the future 



CHURCH COLLEGES, 53 

incalculable. Well-nigh every county feels their influence 
and shares their benefits. They have brought education 
down from the upper walks of life to the humble and needy. 
This has been accomplished, not by depreciating the stand- 
aj»d of scholarship, but by availing themselves of influences 
local, denominational, and patriotic. The interests of soci- 
ety are harmonized, prejudices accommodated, and the ap- 
prehensions of the pious forestalled by a guardianship of 
their own election. Antipathies, prejudices, peculiar no- 
tions obtain and prevail among all classes. They are nat- 
ural; the result of infirmity, ignorance, and misapprehen- 
sion. They are not necessarily criminal. And though 
when excessive or uncharitable they are to be deplored, it 
is wise, when it can be legitimately done, to make them co- 
operate in a good thing. Education is a public blessing 
and when these can be turned to good account in its promo- 
tion, society is improved, and these faults themselves as- 
suaged and liberalized. In the apocalyptic vision "the 
earth helped the woman;" and the work of popular instruc- 
tion has been greatly accelerated by Church pride — if you 
will, by local accommodation, and the generous rivalry of 
the various religious denominations. It is my deliberate 
conviction that in the last fifteen years more has been effect- 
ed by these Church enterprises for the intellectual cultiva- 
tion of the people than by all the plans of the State since 
the adoption of its constitution. 

It is true the early fathers of the State made in the be- 
ginning large, liberal, munificent provision for general edu- 
cation. Every successive legislature has modified or re- 
modeled the original arrangement, evincing at all times an 
intelligent conviction of the wants of the people and their 
duty as representatives to provide for them. 

We have had an educational fund of millions. It has 
been appropriated, distributed, lost, till only a small part 



54 bishop pierce's sermons axd addresses. 

remains. At one time it was determined to endow acade- 
mies, one at least in every county; and then the "Academic 
Fund" and the "General Education Fund" were amalga- 
mated and set apart distinctively as a " Poor School Fund." 
Our legislation has been retrograde — "a step backward" 
with every modification — from a magnificent provision for 
general education down to a partial and inefficient plan for 
the instruction of the poor. This is history, the history. 
Every change has been a failure, every experiment an abor- 
tion. r According to --the recent census there are forty-one 
thousand seven hundred and eighty-six white persons over 
twenty-one years of age who cannot read or write; and 
these have* grown to legal age under the provisions of a 
system ( which seems to be an idol with our law-makers. 
Willing, anxious, earnest as our people and their represent- 
atives are and have been to elevate the State and to wipe 
off this great reproach, I wonder at the pertinacity with 
which they cling to an ineffectual scheme. The law which 
gives the inferior courts authority to assess an extra tax 
equal to the wants of the counties respectively, on the rec- 
ommendation of the grand juries, is in my judgment de- 
cidedly the best effort of the General Assembly to meet the 
necessities of the case. But this has not been tried, so far 
as I know and believe, in more than five counties out of the 
hundred which make up our territory. In those few it has 
worked well, done good, and is capable of more extensive 
application. The last enactment, I fear, will only encum- 
ber and enfeeble it, without substituting any more active 
element. 

Let me be understood. I am not using the language of 
complaint or censure. I state the facts as I see and un- 
derstand them. This is a grave subject, big with the in- 
terests of the future. It needs and deserves discussion. I 
speak as an unpretending citizen, a friend of education, a 



CHURCH COLLEGES. 00 

man who loves the land of his birth. There seems to me 
to be an unreflecting prejudice abroad in relation to what 
is called a " Common School System." There seems to be 
a charm in the name. It is popular — appeals to "the mill- 
ion," and implies a promise utterly beyond its capacity to 
redeem. It realizes the old heathen tradition, the mytho- 
logical curse, of Tantalus in the stream dying of thirst but 
denied a draught. But then it sounds liberal, looks repub- 
lican, is based on indisputable truth ; and though it has 
failed and failed, and done little else but fail, still the con- 
viction lingers that there must be virtue in it, A scheme 
so patriotic and benevolent must have capability, adapta- 
tion, and be the desideratum of the land. And here lies the 
error. Such a system employs but cannot produce. It has 
no innate vitality, no self-sustaining power; cannot move 
of itself; is inert; an idea, an abstraction. Its action is 
dependent upon a force without, and needs instruments 
which it never did and never can create. As a people, we 
have been mocked by one of those delusive theories which, 
involving much truth, contains an error fatal to its wisdom 
and its working. 

A free people ought to be educated ; it is the duty of gov- 
ernment to aid this interest ; knowledge and virtue are the 
guardians of liberty ; ignorance promotes crime. These are 
maxims — democratic axioms. The rich can educate them- 
selves, and the poor are to be the especial objects of legisla- 
tive sympathy and care. There is some, much truth in this 
last proposition. But the rich have rights and wants and 
interests, and they must not be disregarded. Benevolence 
is not always wise, and there is a benevolence which says, 
"Be ye warmed and be ye filled," notwithstanding gives 
not those things which are needful. What doth it profit? 
Universal education is desirable, but it is not to be com- 
passed by an exclusive provision for the poor, plausible as it 



56 BISHOP PIERCE S SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

might seem in view of the assumed fact that all the rest 
may help themselves if they will ; and especially when the 
plan proposed is as a watch without a mainspring. If there 
were school-houses in every poor district of Georgia, and 
the children were collected, still there would be no school 
for the lack of books and teachers. If the money appro- 
priated were distributed and applied to the purchase of 
books, still there would be no school, for there would be 
nothing left to pay the teachers. If the extra tax were 
raised and applied to the payment of teachers, still there 
would be no school, for the teachers are not here, nor would 
the insignificant remuneration command them. 

But if the plan were well conceived, and the necessary 
funds were available, there are other and for the present 
insuperable difficulties. A scheme of education designed 
to act at once upon the masses implies, presupposes an 
amount of intelligence, public spirit, and enterprise among 
the people which does not exist. Our politicians flatter us 
"sovereigns" in their campaign speeches before our great 
elections. Their encomiums are too broad and universal. 
They exaggerate ; the truth is eulogy enough for the pres- 
ent. There is more sober sense — practical, conservative 
wisdom — in Georgia than in any other State of this vast Con- 
federacy. For uniformity, the absence of humbuggery, 
fanatical excitement, this is emphatically "the land of steady 
habits." But still there is ignorance, gross ignorance, in 
our midst. It is in every county, lives in the shadow of 
our court-houses, within sound of our college-bells — ay, sits 
upon the tripod and waves the imperial birch in all the 
pride of power, or struts in majesty the tyrant of the log- 
cabin, and the terror and the curse of the trembling school. 
Besides, there are many, very many parents who do not 
and will not send their children to school, however pro- 
vided. They do not appreciate the blessing; have lived 



CHURCH COLLEGES. 57 

and made their bread, enjoyed the right of suffrage without 
it, and are content for their offspring to plod the same hum- 
ble path. In some cases these boys and girls constitute the 
effective force of the little farm, and cannot be spared from 
their daily labors. Again, the debasement of crime — drunk- 
enness, sloth, and sensuality, and almost all the paupers come 
under this category — has so besotted a certain class, what 
care they for education? 

But rise a little higher; contemplate a class on the as- 
cending scale. They would gladly avail themselves of the 
offered privilege, if the subject were brought home to their 
understanding. But who will give the time, take the trouble, 
encounter the expense? The judges may charge the juries, 
and juries recommend taxation, and inferior courts assess it, 
but who will hunt up the beneficiaries of the arrangement? 
Talk ye of patriotism? Alas! on this subject it is an ob- 
solete virtue. The Church cannot find the men to officer 
her Sunday-schools ; teachers are wanting, and the children 
cannot be gathered in many places; good neighborhoods 
too — your better sort of people living there. And if men 
will not give an hour to God on Sunday for the benefit of 
the poor, will they explore a district in the week to the neg- 
lect of their business? Preposterous inference! 

Moreover, we are a hasty, impulsive people, jealous of 
our rights ; and a visible or imaginary injustice in the imme- 
diate working of a legislative enactment — though a little 
time would have corrected the evil — inflames all the revo- 
lutionary blood of the land, and " Kepeal" is the watch-word. 
Now, no plan of education will work equally at once in 
Georgia. Such are the inequalities of population and wealth 
—and may I not add of intelligence? — such the industrial 
pursuits and local habits of the people, such the distance 
and inconvenience of families in some counties, that no sys- 
tem of the Old or New World would fit the endless contra- 



58 BISHOP PIERCE S SERMONS AXD ADDRESSES. 

rieties of place, circumstances, and wants. If a general plan 
■were now in full operation, five years would disarrange it. 
This result is not only incident to, but inseparable from, 
"our peculiar institutions." Slavery, by its natural in- 
crease and the product of its labor, repels white population. 
The master grows rich and buys the lands of his poor neigh- 
bors till he is alone in the midst of what was once a popu- 
lous region. The very prosperity of the country breaks 
up the system, leaves the school-house to emptiness, and 
creates the necessity for a different agency. For the same 
reason church-houses are abandoned or removed, and it is 
with difficulty that a congregation can be gathered or a 
circuit maintained. What! Would you have no denomi- 
national organization? Yes; but I would have it in an 
element of expansion and adaptation which would survive 
change and follow emigration, while yet it met the local 
demand. 

Schools originating in the felt wants, the active convic- 
tions of the people will sustain themselves by virtue of the 
circumstances which bring them into being. This is nat- 
ural, the result of powerful causes now working energetic- 
ally among us and producing their legitimate effects in every 
])lace. The process is slow, but healthful and sound, and 
in the lapse of time and events will bring about the con- 
summation at which we aim. It cannot be greatly acceler- 
ated by any mechanical, arbitrary system without violating 
what Kossuth calls the "logical consequences of events" 
and producing a precocious state of society, full of mischief 
in tendency and in fact. There is a providence over mind 
and opinions as well as over the seasons, seed-time, and har- 
vest; and we had as well attempt to fill the granary of the 
world in a time of comparative famine by the productions 
of a hot-house as to banish ignorance by the developements 
of a system in advance of the desires and voluntary coop- 



CHURCH COLLEGES. 59 

eration of the benighted and the needy. In the one case, 
we must break the ground, prepare the seed, get ready for 
the time of buds and blossoms, sow and work, and trust the 
sun and the rains to mature the crop. In the other, we 
must talk, write, publish, demonstrate the utility of knowl- 
edge, invoke the parental instinct, rouse personal ambition, 
and form a public opinion which shall pioneer the progress 
of education and make its achievements easy and its con- 
quests permanent. A more virtuous and dignified popula- 
tion will grow up under an economy which springs from 
and is expanded by natural causes, operating in natural 
channels, than under a system which invades — however 
kindly- — and weakens the feeling of personal independence. 
A great public charity which provides indiscriminately for 
the poor is a social and political evil, exerts a debasing in- 
fluence on the morals and habits of the people, and multi- 
plies the claimants on the distributive fund. An established 
provision, under the authority of law, for the education of 
children corrupts the parents by diluting the sense of respon- 
sibility, and defrauds the child of a sympathy which none 
but a parent can feel. Far better leave this great interest 
to individual benevolence; then discrimination will doits 
work, and the modest, unobstrusive, deserving poor will find 
friends to aid them in such a way and to such extent as 
that charity shall not offer temptation to idleness or a pre- 
mium to voluntary pauperism. The feeling of dependence 
cannot be engendered, for the spontaneous offerings of an 
individual or community cannot be counted on as the divi- 
dends of a thrifty fund set apart by legislative bounty alike 
for the unfortunate and the dissolute, the poverty of mis- 
fortune and the destitution of crime. 

A system of education which looks primarily to the poor 
and dependent can never meet the wants of a diversified 
population, or realize the hopes of its projectors. By the 



60 BISHOP PIERCE 's SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

blessing of Providence and the general thrift and industry 
of our people the poor constitute a very inconsiderable por- 
tion, a mere fraction, of the whole number. The proposed 
result can be effectually accomplished by a mode more in 
accordance with the relations of society and the laws which 
govern the world of mind. Christianity achieves her tri- 
umphs by beginning with "the least" and ascending to "the 
greatest." But there is a moral reason for this, and the 
success of it is attributable to the energy of an omniscient 
power. In human enterprises the order of nature must be 
followed. Streams run downward. Light comes from 
above. - And we had as well attempt in a season of drought 
to replenish the failing streams by an engine and hose, or 
supersede the sun by setting candles "upon a thousand 
hills," as to enlighten and refine society by the instrumen- 
tality of a low grade of free schools while the higher insti- 
tutions of learning are, left to feebleness and want. Brew 
the clouds in the heavens and let them drop their fatness 
upon the land below. Set the sun in the firmament to rule 
the day and he will kindle " the lesser lights to rule the 
night." Build up your colleges ; endow them ; capacitate 
them to help the needy, and they will educate the people. 
Any other plan will degrade scholarship, lower the stand- 
ard, and what we gain in extension we shall lose in eleva- 
tion. Multiply the number in our college classes; increase 
the moral and intellectual force of society ; throw into every 
county young men themselves exalted and refined by lib- 
eral education ; incarnate, embody the advantages of knowl- 
edge; let the people see and know what instruction can do 
for a man, and every right-minded graduate will become a 
nucleus around which will gather in crystalline beauty 
influences radiant with light and suggestive of reform. 
Every educated man — unless he be dissolute or immoral — 
is a blessing to the country. Locate him in town or country, 



CHURCH COLLEGES. 6V 

give him a learned profession, or set him to till the earth, 
and he will elevate those about him. But let him feel the 
obligations of patriotism, the responsibilities of an immor- 
tal agent, and give himself, as he ought and likely will, to 
usefulness, and the State will reap a harvest where she 
never sowed. 

What will Georgia do with her schools without teachers? 
Where will she find them? She must look to her colleges. 
They have supplied her in part, and will yet do more. The 
common school system of New England has been highly, 
perhaps extravagantly, extolled. But w T here would she 
have found her instruments and agents but for Harvard 
and Yale, and Princeton and Middletown? These filled 
the land with educated men, enlightened public opinion, 
supplied her academies and schools with superintendents 
and teachers, and sent into every village and hamlet a man 
competent to direct the ignorant, to arouse the indifferent, 
and give form and energy to the common effort. This is 
what we need and must have. And we can have it; yet a 
little while and we will have it. Let the State foster her 
university, let the Christian denominations rally to their 
respective institutions, and these agents, with their annually 
increasing force, will cultivate the land, the wilderness be- 
come a garden, and "the Empire State of the South" set a 
Kohinoor in her queenly diadem. 

I cannot conclude without stating a fact which illustrates 
and confirms the preceding thoughts. Emory College, though 
scanty in her resources, and mainly dependent on tuition 
and receipts to meet her necessary expenditures, is dispens- 
ing education to many who, but for her kindness, could 
never have known the benefits of knowledge. She educates 
without charge for instruction the sons of all the preachers 
of the Georgia and Florida Conferences, and receives many 
more on the pledge of payment when they shall have grad- 



62 BISHOP PIERCE'S SEBMONS AXD ADDRESSES. 

uated and made the money by their own exertions * Al- 
most all this class — besides others — resort to teaching as a 
vocation at once useful, honorable, and lucrative. Here are 
the materials out of which society is to be furnished with 
its active, laborious, enterprising members. O what a field 
for usefulness is here! The privilege might be indefinitely 
extended if the college were but endowed. Where are the 
friends of education? the patriots? the Methodists? Un- 
lock your coffers and invest for virtue, your Church, and 
country. Shake off your apathy ! Awake to duty ! Help 
us to supply the pulpit, occupy the school-house, enrich the 
country with the good, the gifted, and the wise. 

Rejoicing in the evidences of public confidence and pres- 
ent prosperity, let us look forward to the future with hope. 
Emboldened by the history of the past, let us press on to 
nobler triumphs. Strong in the consciousness of a single 
desire to be useful, let us continue to invoke the blessing of 
Heaveu, without which labor is but drudgery and success 
an impossibility. May the institution live, enduring as the 
granite on which this rising superstructure rests, and useful 
to the end, an honor to Methodism and a blessing to Georgia ! 

* Emory has done this for nearly fifty years; she gives (1885) this 
privilege to the "sons of pastors" in all Conferences and all Churches. 
Also two tuition scholarships to each presiding elder's district in 
Georgia and Florida. — Editor. 



DeYotednsss to Kferist* 



" For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. 
For whether we live, Ave live unto the Lord ; and whether we die, 
we die unto the Lord ; whether we live therefore, or die, we are the 
Lord's." (Komans xiv. 7, 8.) 

THE spirit of Christianity is essentially a public spirit. 
It ignores all selfishness. It is benevolence embodied 
and alive, full of plans for the benefit of the world, 
and actively at work to make them effective. Catholic, gen- 
erous, expansive, it repudiates all the boundaries, prescribed 
by names and sects and parties, and "stretches its line into 
the regions beyond," even to the uttermost parts of the 
earth. The world is its parish. Its wishes are commensu- 
rate with the moral wants of mankind, and the will of God, 
who gave his Son to die for us sinners and our salvation, is 
the authority for its labors and the pledge of its triumphs. 

It is the policy of every form of infidelity and speculative 
unbelief, and of every false religion, to depreciate and un- 
dervalue the nature of man. They despoil him of his true 
glory by their chilling, preposterous theories, even while 
they affect to magnify him by fulsome eulogy of his intel- 
lect and its capacious powers. By false notions of personal 
independence, they isolate him from his kind, and the sen- 
sibilities, which Heaven intended should flow out free as 
the gushing spring, they contract and stagnate, till the heart 
grows rank and putrid with its own corruptions. But while 

* Preached in McKendree Church, Nashville, Tennessee, April 
15, 1855, in memory of William Capers, D.D., one of the Bishops 
of the M. E. Church, South.— Editor. 

(63) 



64: BISHOP PIERCE'S SEBMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

our holy religion exalts man as made in the image of God, 
the head and chief of the system to which he belongs, and 
thus invests the individual with dignity and value, vast and 
incalculable — far, far beyond " worlds on worlds arrayed" 
— it yet links him in closest fellowship with the kindred of 
his race. For him the ground yields its increase, the sun 
shines, the stars beam in beauty, the winds blow, the waters 
run. Earth, air, and ocean are all astir with agencies com- 
missioned to do him good; but not for him alone. No mat- 
ter what his rank, power, influence, he but shares the boun- 
ties which have been provided in the munificence of Heaven 
as the common inheritance of all his fellows. No matter 
what his personal rights and interests, he is but a part of a 
great whole. He belongs to a system. No choice of his 
own, no social caste, no civil distinctions, can detach him 
from it. Linked with the world around him by a law of 
his nature and the decree of his Maker, every plan of iso- 
lation is abortive ; and the very effort at separation and ex- 
clusiveness brands him as a miser, a misanthrope, a selfish, 
heartless wretch, without natural affection or any redeeming 
principle. A brute in human form, a demon, with the lin- 
eaments of man, he is under the outlawry of a world itself, 
alas ! but too ignorant of the law of love and the noble aims 
and ends of this mortal life. 

Bound together, as we are, by the ties of common nature 
and of mutual dependence, every man is a fountain of influ- 
ence, good or bad, conservative or destructive. Whether 
he will or not, he is an example. His language, spirit, ac- 
tions, habits, his very manners, all tell — ■forming the taste, 
molding the character, and shaping the course of others, 
to the end of time. No mcui liveth to himself. He cannot. 
Apparently he may, but really he does not. His plans and 
his aspirations may all revolve around himself as a common 
center, but within and without their orbits will be concen- 



CHURCH COLLEGES. G5 

trie circles, inclosing other agents and other interests. He 
may rear walls around his possessions, call his lands by his 
own name, and his inward thought may be, as the world 
phrases it, to take care of himself and his dependents, but 
he can neither limit the effect of his plans nor forecast the 
inheritance of his estate. Another enters even into his 
labors. Disruptive changes abolish his best concerted 
schemes, and scatter to the winds all the securities by which 
he sought to fence and individualize his own peculiar inter- 
ests. 

But while all this is true, and constitutes the basis of a 
fearful responsibility, it is not exactly the idea in our text. 
In the declaration before us the apostle does not affirm a 
principle as predicable of our nature and its social relations, 
nor merely state a fact as resulting from an immutable law 
of our being, but he presents a moral rule, and erects it 
into a standard for the adjudication of character. He de- 
fines the rights of Jesus Christ our Lord, and the obliga- 
tions of those who claim to be his disciples and representa- 
tives. 

A dispute had arisen in the Church concerning meats and 
days — what was allowable and consistent in the one case, 
and what was required and binding upon the other. It was 
a question of privilege — of Christian liberty. Assuming 
that the parties were equally sincere, the apostle did not 
seek to quell the agitation by a temporary expedient, a du» 
bious, unreliable compromise, but took occasion to declare 
a principle of universal authority and application. He 
lays down a rule by which we are to judge others as well as 
to measure ourselves. What one may regard as a cere- 
mony and a superstition is not to be charged upon another 
whose opinion is different as proof that his profession is a 
mask or his piety insincere. Nor is the latter to denounce 
the former as a time-server, a man-pleaser, turning the 



66 bishop pierce's sermons and addresses. 

grace of God into licentiousness. " He that regardeth the 
day, regardeth it unto the Lord; and he that regardeth 
not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it. He that 
eateth, eateth to the Lord, for he giveth God thanks; and 
lie that eateth not, to the Lord he eateth not, and giveth 
God thanks." 

Conceding the right of private judgment — frankly con- 
fessing imperfect knowledge — let both judge charitably. 
The kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteous- 
ness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. There may be, 
there is unity in the great principles of Christian morality, 
and yet a difference of judgment and practice in little 
things. We are not to despise one another because of this di- 
versity, nor, though fully persuaded in our own minds, har- 
ass a brother by the vexatious obtrusion of our peculiar 
notions. His liberty is not to be bounded by our prejudice, 
nor his conscience regulated by our superstition. The law 
of love not only requires good-will, benevolent affection to- 
ward all men, but stretches its authority over our opinions, 
our moral judgment, our estimate of character. We are 
not to perplex the weak with doubtful disputations, nor in- 
cur the risk of imbittering our own feelings by urging our 
ultraisms as essential to salvation. Life is too short to be 
wasted in frivolous disputes, even about matters of con- 
science. Christianity is too precious and noble and vast to 
be scandalized by contentions in the Church about meats 
and drinks, the tithing of mint and anise and cummin. As 
Christian^, we are public men. We live for our race. The 
Lord is our Judge. Great principles are to be avowed, 
maintained, diffused, established. God and our generation 
are to be served — the one to be glorified and the other to 
be saved. 

"For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to 
himself. For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and 



DEVOTEDXESS TO CHRIST. 67 

whether we die, we die unto the Lord; whether we live 
therefore, or die, we are the Lord's." The text is a com- 
prehensive description of a Christian's life, a decisive test 
of character. It is the language of one who well knew 
what Christianity is, and who himself exemplified its prin- 
ciples and spirit. 

Avoiding minute details, we proceed to fix the meaning 
of the terms "living unto the Lord" and "dying unto the 
Lord." 

"Living unto the Lord" may be considered as implying 
that we distinctly recognize the will of God as the rule of 
life. If I may so express it, as the natural subjects of the 
Almighty we are bound to serve him to the full extent 
of the powers he hath given us. He has an unquestiona- 
ble right to our obedience. This results from our relation 
as creatures. He made us and he preserves us. This 
original obligation, instead of being relaxed and impaired, 
is confirmed and intensified by purchase and redemp- 
tion. 

The will of God is to be sought in the statute law of the 
gospel — the plain and express decrees which define and reg- 
ulate our duty. It is important to notice and remember 
that the service we are to perform is not left to our choice. 
We have no rights of legislation in the premises. Our 
task is assigned us, divinely appointed. " Lord, what wilt 
thou have me to do?" ought to be the inquiry of every hu- 
man spirit. The word of God gives the answer : " Thou shalt 
love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy mind, 
with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and thy neighbor 
as thyself." This is the law and the prophets, the true phi- 
losophy of life, the first and second commandments. On 
these hang all the subordinate requirements of "judgment, 
mercy, and faith." The precepts of Christianity are so 
wisely and graciously adapted to promote the private inter- 



68 bishop pierce's sermons and addresses. 

ests of individuals and the general welfare of human soci- 
ety that many who are disaffected toward the divine gov- 
ernment will, for their own sakes, choose to do many things 
which are just and kind and beneficent. These things are 
comely, reputable, of good report among all men ; and a 
man cannot, therefore, serve himself more effectually than 
by practicing the great virtues of humanity. Man's chief 
controversy is with God — against him he wars. He is not 
naturally the enemy of his kind. While some fierce and 
unsocial passions occasionally break out and startle us by 
the atrocity of some monstrous individual crime, and while 
nations wrought into fury sometimes quench their hate in 
blood, yet commonly the social instinct, and the love of 
ease, and the fear of retribution, prevail over what is hos- 
tile and malignant in our nature. In the absence of injury 
or provocation, men generally wish others well, and are even 
disposed to do them good. To some of the duties of Chris- 
tianity there is therefore no natural aversion, no active re- 
pugnance. And it is greatly to be feared that many are 
basing their hopes of heaven upon their exemption from 
the vices that corrupt and embroil society, upon their ami- 
able feelings and kind relations, upon neighborly offices 
and charitable expenditures. But those virtues which are 
merely human, educational, conventional, cannot save. In 
this world they have their origin, their use, and their re- 
ward. The great element of piety is wanting. There is 
no reference to God. And here is a- marked difference be- 
tween the man who lives for himself and the man who lives 
unto the Lord. The one obeys a constitutional impulse 
perhaps — consults his reputation, his business, his influence ; 
or, it may be, rising a little higher, he may rightly estimate 
his responsibilities as a father or as a citizen, and so is hon- 
orable, moral, refined. But he is without God in the world. 
O the loneliness and destitution of such a spirit! Atheism 



DEVOTEDXESS TO CHRIST. 69 



is his religion, if not his creed ; or at best he is an idolater, 
himself the idol. The other realizes the divine authority, 
and obeys because God commands. The relative duties of 
life are performed not to gratify a native generosity, or eke 
out a dubious popularity, but as part of the service and 
homage due his Maker. Over the whole circumference of 
his engagements, in the bosom of his family, the busy marts 
of trade, the retirement of the closet, the worship of the 
sanctuary, the citizenship of the world, there presides a sol- 
emn recognition of the Divine Presence, his being and his 
empire, and every step is taken in reference to him as a wit- 
ness and a judge. 

I know that many profess and seem to be religious on lower 
principles. Public opinion, consistency, ease of conscience, 
to shun hell, to gain heaven, all operate, and they supersede 
and dethrone the higher law in the text — not that these mo- 
tives are illegitimate, but partial and inferior. They ought not 
to become principal and paramount; and they cannot with- 
out a deleterious unhingement of character, and a transfer 
of our duty from the ground of what is divine and author- 
itative to that which is human and self-pleasing. The mo- 
tive in the text is comprehensive, embracing all lower ends; 
harmonizes all, yet subordinates them all to its own sover- 
eign sway. Like a conqueror at the head of his battalions, 
it marches forth to subdue the insurgent elements that would 
dispute its dominion. It is the " stronger man " keeping his 
goods in peace. Without it, there can be no consecration ; 
and with it, no compromise of duty. The failure to recog- 
nize and adopt this great principle of morality has fearfully di- 
luted the experience of the Church, and embarrassed every 
department of Christian service. "I will run in the way of 
thy commandments, when thou shalt enlarge my heart/' 
said the psalmist. JSo man can rise above the constraining 
considerations which spring from interest, feeling, safety, 



70 bishop pierce's seemoxs axd addresses. 

pleasure, in reference to all minor questions of duty, save 
as he resolves religion into some great general principles and 
purposes, from the decision of which there is no appeal. 

These principles, wisely adopted and well understood, 
will marshal all the chances and changes of life, all its unto- 
ward events, all its interfering agencies, so that they shall 
fall into ranks like well-trained soldiers under the command 
of a superior officer. They simplify religion, disentangle it 
from all purely selfish influences, from the bias of worldly 
interest, from the guile of passion, and leave a man free to 
glorify God according to the Scriptures. How simple and 
sublime the character, deriving its greatness and worth from 
God and duty! How grandly independent is he who knows 
no fear but the fear of God, who seeks no favor but the 
smile of Jesus, and whose single eye scans all things, great 
and small, in the light which no shadow can eclipse ! His 
life regulated by one great pervading law and purpose, he 
escapes all the ' trials by which feebler and less decided 
Christians are tormented and impeded. His heart, conse- 
crated in all its plans and purposes, falters not at sacrifice 
or peril or suffering. Difficulties and doubts he has none. 
His religion is to him a law that never changes. His heart 
is fixed, trusting in the Lord. His plan of life settled 
scripturally, advisedly, and in the fear of God, he is not 
to be bought or bribed, frightened or defeated. Turning 
neither to the right nor left, he moves right on. If along 
his pathway the den of lions opens, he lies down and lodges 
for the night, and in the morning tells how the angel kept 
him. If the furnace be kindled to test or to destroy him, he 
walks unburned in the flame, and comes forth without the 
smell of fire upon his garments. Escaped from the shallows 
and the breakers where so many toil with unavailing oar, 
he has launched on the deep, and, favored by wind and 
tide, looks with lively hope for an abundant entrance into 



DE VOTE DX ESS TO CHRIST. 71 

the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus 
Christ. 

But the principle I am discussing, considered as a test of 
character and a rule by which to adjudicate our Christian 
claims, is worthy of enlargement. Living unto the Lord 
implies that we make the approbation of God our govern- 
ing aim, that we study to please him, and that, whatever 
we do, we do all to his glory. 

Religion to be saving must be supreme. "My son, give 
me thine heart." " He that loveth father or mother more 
than me, is not worthy of me." God claims the body and 
the spirit. He will not divide the empire which is his by 
right with invaders and usurpers. Unless, therefore, his 
approval is the predominant motive, Ave not only base our 
Christianity upon mistaken apprehensions of the Divine 
claims, but we repudiate the only principle which can sub- 
jugate the rebellious elements and passions of our fallen 
nature. Before conversion we form attachments and al- 
low indulgences wholly inconsistent with a life of devotion. 
To do well we must first cease to do evil. The flesh, with 
its affections and lusts, must be crucified. Self-denial is the 
first law of discipleship. Who would submit to have the 
right hand cut off, the right eye plucked out— much less 
perform the operation upon himself — unless, by the expul- 
sive power of a new and holy affection, these enemies which 
encamped within his heart shall be routed and taken cap- 
tive? There must be the ascendency of another and a higher 
principle than any which is merely human to break down 
the dominion of appetite and passion and habit. Flesh and 
blood are sad counselors in the work of God. To consult 
them is to betray our spiritual interests. The multitude do 
evil; we must dare to be singular. But who will come out 
from the world, brave its scorn, defy its persecution, disdain 
its blandishments, and rebuke its, ungodliness by declining 



72 BISHOP PIERCE'S SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

its fellowship ? None but those who feel that God's smile 
amply remunerates for the world's contempt, and that the 
testimony that we please him outweighs all earthly treas- 
ure, and outshines all earthly glory. 

To live for Christ and to live for ourselves is utterly 
impracticable. The union is a moral impossibility. We 
love a good name ; but they that will live godly in Christ 
Jesus shall suffer persecution. We are rich, but the com- 
mand is, " Sell all that thou hast, and give to the poor, and 
come follow me." We love home and friends ; but Christ 
calls to absence and labor and sacrifice. Religion is popu- 
lar — you embrace it; the Church is fashionable — you join 
it. The people shout, " Hosanna ! " and Jesus is escorted by 
a worshiping multitude — you say, " Lord, I will follow thee 
whithersoever thou goest." The Master replies : " The foxes 
have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son 
of man hath not where to lay his head." What will you 
do now ? Go away sorrowful ? or, having counted the cost, 
go on to build? "Choose ye this day whom ye will serve;" 
or have you settled this question long ago in favor of duty 
and Heaven? Are you living unto the Lord? You are 
making a fortune — is it that you may do more good? You 
are rising in the world, seeking title and honor and influ- 
ence^ — is it that you may enlarge your sphere of usefulness? 
O brother, if the carnal affection grows aloug with the car- 
nal interest, thy prosperity may destroy thee ! Gr, if thou 
art seeking thy own pleasure, gratification, and advance- 
ment, thou hast fallen from grace. Even Christ pleased 
not himself. Paul obeyed the heavenly vision immediately, 
conferring not with flesh and blood. And every man who 
would fulfill the great purposes of his creation and redemp- 
tion must make God's approving judgment the motive of 
all his actions and the goal of all his efforts. G how the 
saints of the Bible luxuriated in this element of devotion ! 



JDEVOTEDNESS TO CHRIST. 73 

" One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek 
after : that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the 
days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to in- 
quire in his temple." " I count all things but loss, for the 
excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord." 
These exemplars illustrate our subject. They lived unto 
the Lord. In his favor was life. "A day in his courts was 
better than a thousand." The world's parade and pomp 
paled before the glory of the sanctuary. The festal charms, 
the music, and the mirth of the tents of wickedness were 
despised, and the lowest place in the house of God preferred. 
They felt that they did not live at all except as they lived 
unto the Lord. 

This is the spirit of the text. Life is not to be measured 
by days and months and years, but by a succession of serv- 
ices to Him that loved us and gave himself for us. I have 
no doubt that when the last hour comes — that hour for 
which earth has no comfort and philosophy no hope — when 
the spirit, disenthralled from the seductions of time, the 
witchery of sense, shall stand face to face with the realities 
of an eternal state, then even life's most serious engage- 
ments will all seem as vacancies, like the hours passed in 
sleep, and the pleasures of the world like the vagaries of 
sleep itself. Go buy, sell, get gain, build a name, rear 
houses, add field to field, project public improvements, lo- 
cate railroads, plan empires — this is all labor and travail, 
vanity and vexation of spirit. 

This is to breathe, not to live; to work, not to enjoy. 
"All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of 
grass ; " " but he that doeth the will of God, liveth and abid- 
eth forever." To love God, this is joy; to know Christ, this 
is gain ; to do good, this is life. Mortal man ! child of the 
dust! this vain life which we spend as a shadow is but the 
vestibule of being. Here we die while we live; the cradle 



i± BISHOP PIERCES SEBMOXS AXD ADDRESSES. 

rocks us to the tomb. , \Ye spend our strength for naught. 
Kiches fledge and fly away. Honor is but a dew-drop, glit- 
tering in the morning ray, exhaled by the very beam that 
makes it shine. Love and friendship — the heart's best af- 
fections — wounded, pine; or, bereaved, they dwell among 
the dead, like Mary, weeping there. O where is the bloom 
without the blight ? the sun without the cloud ? Lord Jesus, 
thou wilt show me the path of life; in thy presence, though 
dimly seen, is unutterable joy; and where thou art in glory 
visible, is heaven. 

" Whether we die, we die unto the Lord." This is an 
important declaration, "wholesome and full of comfort." 
"Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his 
saints." The death of a good man is of too much import 
to happen by chance. It is an important instrument in 
God's plans of mercy and judgment. The event is big with 
instruction. Not to lay it to heart when the righteous per- 
ish is criminal insensibility — a wicked indifference to the 
dispensations of Heaven. Such a death is a public calamity. 
It is not a sparrow falling to the ground, a flower fading in 
the field, "the sear and yellow leaf" afloat upon the au- 
tumnal gale, and then descending to the earth, where its 
mates of the forest lie hueless and dead. A light is quenched, 
and the darkness grows deeper. The world is bereaved of 
a conservative influence. The prayers he would have of- 
fered are lost ; and if " the fervent effectual prayer of a 
righteous man availeth much," how great the loss! The 
family loses a guide and guardian, the Church an example, 
the country a benefactor. He serves the country best who 
loves God most. He is not the patriot who fights the na- 
tion's battles, right or wrong, but he who leads a life of 
quietness and peace, in all godliness and honesty. He is not 
the most important man who projects your laws, marshals 
your parties, and leads in politics, but he who, by faith and 



DEVOTEDNESS TO CHRIST. 10 

prayer and power with God, averts the wrath our sins pro- 
voke. David did more for Judah when he bought Arau- 
nah's threshing-floor, built an altar, offered sacrifice, and 
stayed the pestilence, than when, with kingly authority, 
he dispatched Joab to quell the rebellion of Absalom. The 
intercession of Moses when, with holy boldness, with daring 
confidence, he rushed between the offending Israelites and the 
Almighty, girded for battle and extermination, and pre- 
vailed for their salvation, wrought a greater wonder than 
when, obedient to his magic rod, the parted waters returned 
in vengeance upon Pharaoh's pursuing host. Elijah was the 
chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof — the bulwark of 
the nation. The clouds of heaven hung their keys at his 
girdle, and the widow's meal and oil multiplied beneath his 
blessing. A good man ! O ye men of royal birth, ye sages, 
statesmen, heroes, ye glimmer faintly beside the saint shin- 
ing in the image of God ! His wisdom is divine, his line- 
age heavenly, and greater than he who taketh a city, for 
he hath conquered himself. I admire architecture, paint- 
ing, sculpture, the wonders of the chisel and the pencil. I 
love nature in her mountain majesty, the rolling ocean, and 
the woodland vales — all that is lovely and sublime — but 
God is witness I would go farther to see a good man, to hear 
him talk of Jesus, enter into his communion, feel the moral 
grandeur of his destiny, than to behold any achievement 
of art or scene of nature. These change and perish ; he is 
immortal. He thinks, he feels, he loves. His body is the 
temple of the Holy Ghost, and his spirit is bathed in the 
glory of the shekinah — the symbol of the presence and 
worship of God. The departure of such a man is a token 
of displeasure. It is the voice of Heaven in judgment. 
But, though the family is afflicted, the Church in mourning, 
and the nation smitten, he "dies unto the Lord" and "in 
the Lord." With him "it is well." 



76 BISHOP PIERCE'S SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

Or the text may find its fulfillment in that God hides him 
from the evil to come. I knew a good man who, in dying, 
said, "My God is housing me from a storm;" and the dec- 
laration was prophetic. Soon evils that would have broken 
his heart and brought him in sorrow to the grave came 
upon his family in overwhelming disaster. Dangers — spir- 
itual dangers — are coming ; domestic calamities draw nigh ; 
national troubles are fermenting ; God sees the clouds gath- 
ering, the elements brewing ; and, while yet the cloud is as 
a man's hand, and the winds are murmuring afar off, he 
transfers his faithful servant to the repose of the blest. " In 
his hand are all my ways." Delightful thought ! He di- 
rects my steps, hears my sighs, chooses my allotments, num- 
bers the hairs of my head, is about my bed and my path, 
and knoweth how and when to deliver. " Whether we die, 
we die unto the Lord." 

But it may be asked : " Why, if the righteous are so dear 
to Christ and so valuable to the world, are they doomed to 
death at all? Why does not religion, -which saves us from 
a thousand other evils, release us from this law of mortal- 
ity?" In answer, I remark : The reasons are obvious on 
reflection. Exemption from death as a reward of piety 
would appeal so strongly to the love of life — the quickest, 
most enduriug instinct of our being — as to override the 
freedom of choice, and thus make rational, voluntary piety 
impossible. We should adopt it as a starving man would 
clutch offered bread, or the man dying of thirst would seize 
the cup of cold water. And besides, the violence done to 
our nature in making the propensities decide a question be- 
longing, under the present economy and in the proper fit- 
ness and adaptation of things, to the intellect, the heart, the 
will, the incongruity would follow of proposing a carnal, 
earthly motive for a spiritual life. On such a plan, Chris- 
tianity must approve what she now repudiates; and the 



DEVOTE DX ESS TO CHRIST. it 

holy considerations by which she now seeks to win us from 
error to wisdom, from earth to heaven, would all be neu- 
tralized and lost, and the world to come be doomed to bor- 
row the forces of time to achieve its noblest victories. 

The evil of sin cannot be shown but by its punishment. 
This conclusion is legitimate from what is revealed of the 
divine administration, and from what we know of the proc- 
esses of conviction in the mind of man. God hates sin. 
It is a blot upon his dominions. But he has not left the 
world to learn the fact even from the awful denunciations 
of his word, but he has written it in the catastrophe of na- 
tions. The deluge, famine, pestilence, fire and brimstone 
from heaven, have been the messengers of his wrath and 
the instruments of retribution. And where, save in the 
crucifixion of Christ Jesus and the damnation of the guilty, 
will you look for a more impressive demonstration of God's 
justice and his indignation against sin than in the dying 
agonies of infant innocence, or the mortal convulsions of 
him who dies unto the Lord ? It is written, " The body is 
dead because of sin," even when " the spirit is life because 
of righteousness." But death, with all its antecedents and 
consequents, the mournful harbingers of its approach and 
its power, the loathsome desolations of its victory and its 
reign, to the saint of God is no longer death. It is but 
dissolution — a departure. Sad in its aspects and accompa- 
niments, it is nevertheless a release. A pillar of cloud and 
fire, its shadows all fall on this side the grave ; beyond, all 
is light and life and glory. We die unto the Lord, and — 
may I not add— for the Lord. The death of the good 
preaches terror to the wicked. " If the righteous scarcely 
be saved, where shall the sinner and the ungodly appear?" 
O we ask not " Enoch's rapturous flight nor Elijah's fiery 
steeds" to bear us away, if by dying we may help to con- 
vince the world of sin and judgment! We would do good 



78 BISHOP piebce's sermons and addbesses. 

even in death. As we wish to live to serve Him " who loved 
us," so would we die to make his glory known — " the jus- 
tice and the grace." 

"Mark the perfect man and behold the upright, for the 
end of that man is peace." " The chamber where the good 
man meets his fate" is a scene of glory. See his patience 
under suffering — the calm submission, and often the joy un- 
utterable. Is this human fortitude, the stoicism of a blind 
philosophy, the outnashing of sentiment and fancy? No, 
no. It is the fulfillment of promise ; grace abounds. It is 
the conviction that the Judge of all the earth will do right, 
" Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him." It is the 
knowledge of the Kedeemer in his pardoning mercy, his 
purifying spirit, and in the glory soon to be revealed in its 
fullness and eternity. It is an argument for religion that it 
ends well. " Let me die the death of the righteous, and let 
my last end be like his." The prophet's prayer finds an 
echo in every heart not lost to hope and heaven. Who 
that looks upon a dying-scene where Christianity wreathes 
the pale face with smiles of rapture, and inspires the failing 
tongue to utter its last articulations in the dialect of heav- 
en, does not breathe from his inmost soul the wish, Even 
so may I meet the last enemy? In life, being strong in 
faith, we give glory to God; so in the final struggle he is 
glorified in us and by us. " These all died in faith ; " im- 
mortal record, epitaph of the good, and interpreter of their 
doom. Living and dying, " we are the Lord's " — his prop- 
erty — absolutely, in every change, walking upon the earth 
and sleeping in its bosom. He made us and he loves us. 
He is " not ashamed to be called " our God. Life, proba- 
tion, and death are all ministers employed by him to do us 
good. If he prolong our days, it is that we may serve him 
and our generation by the will of God. If he afflict us, it 
is "for our profit, that we may be partaker? of his holiness." 



DEVOTEDXESS TO CHRIST. 79 

If he call us hence, it is that we may "see him as he is, and 
be like him forever." Our bodies may inhabit the house 
appointed for all the living, and our very name perish from 
the records of time, but he looks down and " watches all 
our dust till he shall bid it rise." We are the Lord's — the 
jewels of his kingdom and the travail of his soul. He hath 
said it, and it shall stand fast — "they shall be mine;" "be- 
ci. ..se I live, they shall live also." " We are the Lord's." 
Let us rejoice in our relationship, and walk worthy of our 
high descent and our immortal destiny. 

The principle and spirit of the text were beautifully ex- 
emplified in the life and death of our beloved brother, Bish- 
op Capers. I have never known a man of more simple, 
single-hearted, uncalculating devotion. Born of God while 
yet a youth, his life was consecrated unreservedly to the 
service of Christ and his Church. Through all the changes 
of his career — youth, maturity, and age; single, married, 
and surrounded by sons and daughters; on circuits, stations, 
and districts; a deacon, an elder, and a Bishop — he ex- 
hibited the same steady, onward devotion, a man of God, 
of faith, of zeal. His steadfast purpose never faltered, no 
change of fortune modified the entireness of his dedication, 
no accumulation of cares relaxed his efforts to do good. He 
lived unto the Lord. Absence from home might entail 
loss, afflict feeling, tax affection ; no matter, he had set his 
heart within him to finish his course with joy, and the min- 
istry which he had received of the Lord Jesus to testify 
the gospel of the grace of God. On more than one occa- 
sion he might have secured to his family a home rich in 
comforts, and to himself honors and emoluments, by sepa- 
rating himself from the itinerancy he loved and consenting 
to serve a people who proved their esteem by the largeness 
of their offered liberality. But attached to our Church 
and its economy bv conviction and choice, salary was no 



80 bishop pierce's sermon s and addresses. 

temptation to leave it, or even to modify his relation to it ; 
and, in the face of all the sacrifices and privations and la- 
bors of a traveling Methodist preacher, he declined a city 
home and a well-filled purse. 

My acquaintance with our dear departed brother — I 
ought to call him father — began while I was but a boy and 
he was in the meridian of his strength and the blaze of a 
renown such as few attain. The impressions made upon 
me then, by his humble manner, his sanctified conversation, 
and his unwearied labors, were fully justified by the famil- 
iarity of intercourse in after years. He seemed to me to be 
dead to the world, its gains and honors, and alive only to 
the glory of God and the salvation of souls. While his 
name was upon every tongue, and crowds were rushing 
from appointment to appointment, and the whole country 
w T as in a fever of curiosity and admiration, he seemed to 
shrink from fame and the exultation by which a common 
mind and a common heart would have been lifted up in 
his case was lost in an overwhelming sense of the responsi- 
bility his position entailed. He was one of the very few 
men I have known who was not injured in his piety and 
preaching by great popularity. To seek popularity as an 
object, in a minister is a crime; to bear it meekly when it 
comes unsought, is a virtue of rarest value. 

This virtue characterized, distinguished William Capers in 
the freshness of his youth, the glory of his noon, and in the 
mellow ripeness of his sanctified old age. He was clothed 
with humility. It was his beauty and his strength. The 
praise even of the lowly oppressed him. Courted and ca- 
ressed by the rich, the great", the mighty in the land, he 
shrunk from their embrace, lest he might seem to others 
to be seeking great things for himself. His faith was never 
hindered by seeking the honor of men, his fidelity never 
compromised by the adulation of the Church or the world. 



BE VOXELS ESS XO CHRIST. 81 

Who ever heard him tel] of the mighty works he had done, 
the great sermons he had preached, the wondrous revivals 
he had carried on ? Who ever saw in his air the conceit 
of success, or detected in his language the self-gratulation of 
a praiseworthy deed? He was not the hero of his narra- 
tives, nor did he talk to make the simple wonder or the 
great admire. Like Paul, whose visit to the third heaven' 
was kept a secret for fourteen years, and revealed at last only 
to vindicate his apostleship, he said but little of his own ex- 
perience, save in the retirement of private life to the ear of 
intimate companionship. Astonishingly fluent, he talked 
much, but always well. He never forfeited in private the 
reputation he had made in public. Cheerful without lev- 
ity, and easy without familiarity, he never degraded the 
ministry into the trifler, nor reproached the sanctity of his 
profession by foolish talking or jesting, which are not conven- 
ient. As a man, his nature was alive and gushing with all 
noble, generous impulses. Kind, affectionate, full of sym- 
pathy, he rejoiced with them that rejoiced, and wept with 
them that wept. In his family, gentle without weakness, 
and fond without improper indulgence. His wife — herself 
a model woman — revered while she loved, and honored 
while she served. His children, feeling themselves favored 
of Heaven in the virtues of such a father, obeyed his com- 
mands, consulted his wishes, and felt his smile to be a meed 
and a recompense. No man loved his children more. He 
regretted in the last hour that so few of them were present, 
and yet rejoiced that he had seen them so recently. Lovely 
family ! — children honored in their parents, and parents hon- 
ored in their children. God's best blessing continue with 
them to the latest generation. 

It is not amiss to say that Bishop Capers was in manners 
a gentleman — bland, courtly, refined. In him the polish 
of the courtier and the simplicity of the saint beautifully 



82 BISHOP FIEBCE-S SERMONS AXD ADDRESSES. 

blended. His politeness did not consist in the formalities 
and ceremonies which, in certain circles, are dignified as 
the insignia of the well-bred and the fashionable, but it was 
the outgushing of a heart which knew no rule but the 
promptings of its own benevolence. It was the outward 
expression of an inward disposition, a mode of action which 
a loving spirit instinctively prescribed, the free, untaught, 
unconstrained operation of Christian courtesy. In the par- 
lor and - the pulpit, the street and the sanctuary, he was 
minutely regardful of the proprieties of life ; and while the 
simplest rustic found no affectation, the fastidious critic dis- 
covered no fault. 

I must not omit to mention his excellence in prayer. 
Whether we consider his power as a gift or a grace, he sur- 
passed most men. In his devotions there was so much of 
the evangelical element that a heathen man might have 
learned the plan of salvation from any one of his public 
exercises. On his knees he knew nothing but Christ. The 
cross was his all-prevailing plea, He urged it with fervor, 
affection, and faith. He was himself an intercessor, filled 
with yearning sympathies for his fellow-men. And some- 
times his power with God would remind us of Jacob and 
the angel, of Israel and his blessing. 

To describe him as a preacher belongs rather to his biog- 
rapher than to the sketch of a funeral discourse. He was 
a scribe well instructed in the kingdom of God, an able 
minister of the New Testament. He brought forth out of 
his treasure things new and old. Eich in thought, fertile 
in matter, there was no sameness in his discourses, even 
when he preached from the same text — which he often did. 
I never heard him use the same illustration twice, or falter 
for a word. Copious in language, apt in selection, and in- 
exhaustible in variety, he was always ready and always new. 
It is difficult to classify his style as a preacher. His ser- 



DEVOTEDXESS TO CUEIST. 83 

rnons -were not essays nor expositions, nor were they narra- 
tives with reflections interspersed, nor yet topical exactly ; 
still, all these sometimes — except the first — were mingled by 
him. Perhaps the word textual will fit his manner best. 
His sermons grew out of his texts — not by formal divisions, 
but by an artistic development, a verbal evolution of their 
meaning. Under his peculiar management many a verse 
or passage to the untrained eye dark — or at least obscure — 
became instructive, beautiful, most interesting. Gifted with 
wonderful versatility and readiness, he excelled all I ever 
knew in adapting his text and discourse on a sudden call 
to all that was peculiar on the occasion. He often awak- 
ened attention by the announcement of a verse which none 
but he would ever have chosen. In this, however, he was 
not fanciful or eccentric, but simply obeyed the impulse of 
a mind unique in its conceptions and modes of thought. In 
thought, language, style, he was original, yet without eccen- 
tricity ; called no man master, and yet violated no rule of 
the books; always accurate, always simple, but elegant in 
his simplicity. His sermons were often ornate, but there 
was no florid coloring, no exuberance, no glare. There was 
a delightful propriety, a minute beauty, a neat, chaste, grace- 
ful arrangement of every part. His flowers were not arti- 
ficial ; they all had roots, and they were redolent with the 
morning- dew, fresh and fragrant as a vernal garden in the 
early day. 

It is but just to say that his pulpit efforts were very un- 
equal ; yet, in his driest, darkest moods, he was William 
Capers; all the mental characteristics of the man stood 
forth ; a familiar acquaintance could not fail to recognize 
them. He possessed the singular faculty of speaking with 
fluency, grace, and propriety when his mind was barren and 
empty, and his hearers listened well pleased, even when they 
got nothing to carry away. But at other times he was 



S± BISHOP pierce' s sermons and addresses. 

transfigured, his very form dilated, his eye beamed with 
celestial beauty, soft with the light of love, yet radiant with 
the joy of his rapt and ravished spirit, and his voice, mel- 
lowed by emotion, spell-bound while it inspired the hearing 
multitude. When the Spirit of the Lord God was upon him, 
when the angel touched his lips with a coal from the altar, 
O he was a charming preacher! I have heard him when 
the consolations of the gospel distilled from his tongue as 
honey from the rock, and the message of salvation came 
down like the angelic song upon the shepherds of Bethle- 
hem. Anon I have seen him clothe himself with terrible 
majesty, as when a prophet proclaimed the vengeance of the 
Almighty, and then the thunder of the violated law pealed 
from his lips like the trump of doom, and the pallid, awe- 
struck assembly told that the preacher had power with God 
and prevailed with men. 

For the mourner in Zion, the grief-stricken, the bowed, 
the desolate, he had the tongue of the learned and the heart 
of a seraph. O the pathos of his sympathy, how touching 
and tender ! It was a healing oil, a soothing balsam. Be- 
neath its magic charm desolation bloomed and tears were 
turned to rapture. Many a way-worn pilgrim, weary with 
life's heavy burdens, faint yet pursuing with faltering steps, 
felt his hopes revive and his courage grow strong while this 
"old man eloquent" discoursed of providence and grace and 
heaven, of the cross, the mercy-seat, and the crown of life. 
These were the themes on which he loved to dwell ; they 
were the rejoicing of his heart and the staple of his minis- 
try. But the harp is broken, and all its music gone. The 
pleasant voice is hushed, and he who played so well upon 
that wondrous instrument, the human tongue, lies low in 
cold obstruction and dumb forgetfulness. Bishop Capers is 
no more! His place at the council-board of the Church he 
loved is empty. The pulpit shall know him no more for- 



DEVOTEDXESS TO CHRIST. 00 

ever. The grave's dark eclipse rests upon that beaming 
face, and that venerable form that moved among us but a 
little while ago, shrouded, coffined, buried, sleeps in death — 
thank God, in Jesus too ! — awaiting the descent of the judg- 
ment angel and the revelation of the Son of man. 

The circumstances of his decease have been so widely 
published, are so generally known, that I need not detail 
them now. Suffice it to say that having finished his last 
episcopal tour, visited his children, he returned to his quiet 
home to rest for a season in the bosom of his family. O the 
sober bliss, the grateful joy of such a meeting! It was a 
mercy that allowed him this last interview. Death found 
the soldier in his tent, recruiting for another campaign. At 
midnight the spoiler came. The sleeping household were 
roused by the trembling cry of the wife, the mother, in the 
agony of her alarm. They rushed to the good man's cham- 
ber, and found him sitting up, but writhing in pain. " Make 
my blood circulate," he said. They essayed the task, but 
failed. Seeing their alarm, and feeling that his end was 
nigh, he said: "I am already cold; and now, my precious 
children, give me up to God. O that more of you were 
here! but I bless God that I have so lately seen you all." 
But see how principle and duty and devotion to the Church 
worked at the last and to the last. Bathed in the dew of 
mortality, enduring untold agony, longing for the faces of 
those he loved, gasping in death, he said: ''Mary, I want 
you to finish my minutes to-morrow, and send them off." 
Duty was his law in life, his watch-word at the gate of death. 
Partially relieved by the physician's skill and the power 
of medicine, he asked the hour. When told, he exclaimed, 
"What! only three hours since I have been suffering such 
torture? Only three hours! What must be the voice of 
the bird that cries, 'Eternity, eternity!' Thjee hours have 
taken away all but my religion." Health gone, strength 



86 bishop Pierce's sermons and addresses. 

gone, hope gone, life almost gone, but religion abides stead- 
fast and stronger. Retreating from the shore where stand 
wife, children, and friends waving their last adieu, but my 
religion goes with me. All the foundations of earth are 
failing me, but my religion still towers amid the general 
wreck, securely firm, indissolubly sure. Glory to God for 
such a testimony from such a man! 

For a little while nature seemed to rally, the king of ter- 
rors to relent. His children retired to rest at his urgent 
entreaty. On the morning of the 29th of January he pro- 
posed to rise and dress himself, and insisted that his devoted 
wife should seek repose. She reminded him of the doctor's 
prescription, and besought him to keep his bed. He took 
the medicine, drank freely of water, pillowed his head upon 
his arm, and breathed his last. 

So fades a summer cloud away ; 

So sinks the gale when storms are o'er; 
So gently shuts the eye of day ; 

So dies a wave along the shore. 

Life's duty done, as sinks the clay, 

Light- from its load, the spirit flies; 
While heaven and earth combine to say, 
"How blest the righteous when he dies!" 

In the history of our honored, beloved brother there is no 
vice to deplore and no error to lament. I say not that he 
was perfect ; but I do say a world of such men would liken 
earth to heaven. I say not that he had no infirmities, no 
human frailties; but I do say that his self-sacrificing spirit, 
his humble, holy, useful labors, his unwearied zeal, and his 
spotless example are to his descendants a noble patrimony, 
and to the Church a priceless heritage. Alive, he was a 
demonstration of the power and truth of Christianity ; be- 
ing dead, he yet speaketh, proclaiming to all that God is 
faithful. He left all and followed Christ, but never lacked 



DEVOTEDNESS TO CHRIST. 87 

any good thing. Counting all things but loss that he might 
win Christ, God gave him friends and fame, and honor and 
usefulness. A messenger of God, his visits were blessings. 
The country admired him and the Church loved him. His 
death fell like a shadow upon many a hearth-stone, and his 
native State became a valley of weeping. Cities struggled 
for the honor of his burial, and Methodism, in mourning, 
repeats his funeral to prolong her grief and consecrate his 
memory. O brethren ! we have lost a friend, a brother, an 
advocate, an example, a benefactor. Earth is growing 
poorer. There is now less faith, less zeal, less love in the 
world. The righteous are perishing, the good are taken 
away. O ye venerable fathers of the Church, contempora- 
ries and fellow-laborers of the ascended Capers, your ranks 
are broken ! The friends of your youth are gone, and rel- 
ics of a generation well-nigh past, ye still linger among us. 
God bless you, we love you very much, but we cannot keep 
you much longer! Your sands are running low, your 
change is at hand. You, venerable sir,* are almost the 
only bond that binds the preacher and the congregation to 
the pioneers of Methodism in this broad country. That 
bond, fretted and worn by more than three-score years and 
ten, is well-nigh threadless, attenuated, and ready to break. 
But God is with you. The raven hair, the ruddy cheek, 
the vigorous arm, the enduring strength, are gone — all 
gone — but your religion too, thank God, is left you! Lean- 
ing upon that staff, you are waiting your summons. Heav- 
en bless you with a smiling sunset, a pleasing night, and a 
glorious morn! And you, hoary veterans of the cross — one 
and all — -heroes of a glorious strife, remnants of an army 
slain and yet victorious, if we survive when ye are gone, 
how bereaved and solitary our lot! But ye are going; the 
wrinkled brow, the furrowed cheek, the halting step re- 

* Bishop SouLe. 



8S BISHOP PIERCE? 'S SEBMOXS AXD ADDEESSES. 

spond, Yes, we are going. Pray for us while you live, and 
bless us when you die. 

And you, brethren — middle-aged and young — let us imi- 
tate the example, catch the spirit, of our glorified brother 
and fellow-laborer. He felt himself a debtor to the wise 
and the unwise. The white man, the Indian, and the ne- 
gro all shared his counsel, his labors, his sympathy, and his 
prayers. The white fields are yet ungathered, and the 
strongest reapers are falling. The mournful event ye com- 
memorate cries, Go work to-day in the Lord's vineyard ! 
This is our duty, and ought to be our only business. We 
are here, as officers and ministers of our branch of the 
Church, to inaugurate our great missionary and publishing 
interests under new auspices. But the cold shadow of death 
falls darkly upon our council-chamber. Its presence is a 
warning. We have home interests we may not live to su- 
pervise; there are plans of usefulness we may not help to 
execute ; for we too are passing away. What we do must 
be done quickly. Let us live unto the Lord. Let us live 
unto the Lord more than ever. Let us be more prompt, 
self-denying, and laborious. Let us be steadfast, immova- 
ble, always abounding in the work of the Lord, ibrasmuch 
as we know that our labor is not in vain in the Lord. 
What we lay out he will repay. Amid our toil, inconven- 
iences, and trials, be this our consolation: "We are the 
Lord's." If we live till our physical powers decay, the 
dim eye may still read our title clear. On Jesus' bosom 
we may lean the hoary head, and in death's sad struggle 
feel our kind Preserver near. God will not love us less 
because ' ; the strong men bow themselves/' and "the keep- 
ers of the house tremble." His love endureth forever. His 
claim is undeniable; his title indisputable. The grave's ef- 
facing fingers cannot mutilate the handwriting. Time's pon- 
derous wheel, as it grinds the world to dust on its march to 



DEVOTEDXESS TO CHRIST. 89 

judgment, cannot destroy the record. "A book of remem- 
brance is written before him " — safe beyond the desolations 
of earth and the triumphs of the sepulcher. Heeding, 
then, the solemn providence which bids us weep a brother 
deceased, let us go forth bearing precious seed, sowing be- 
side all waters — we shall rest, and stand in our lot at the 
end of the days. "Whether we live therefore, or die, we 
are the Lord's." Living and dying, dead and buried, we 
are his — his when we rise, his when heaven and earth are 
fled and gone, his in the New Jerusalem forever and ever* 

"Servant of God, well done! 

Eest from thy loved employ; 
The battle fought, the vict'ry won, 

Enter thy Master's joy." 
The voice at midnight came ; 

He started up to hear ; 
A mortal arrow pierced his frame: 

He fell, but felt no fear. 

Tranquil amid alarms, 

It found him on the field, 
A vet'ran slumb'ring on his arms 

Beneath his red-cross shield. 
His sword was in his hand, 

Still warm with recent fight, 
Eeady that moment, at command, 

Through rock and steel to smite. 

The pains of death are past, 

Labor .and sorrow cease; 
And life's long warfare closed at 

His soul is found in peace. 
Soldier of Christ, well done ! 

Praise be thy new employ; 
And while eternal ages run, 

Rest in thy Saviour's joy. 



Why Women Should be Well Educated; . 

THE rage for female education in Georgia is a phenom- 
enon, an anomaly, almost a mania. It is strange, won- 
derful, well-nigh unaccountable. Regarded as a great 
social fact in the progress of the times and the people, it has 
no parallel in the past. History records no such movement. 
The oldest civilization of the Old World furnished no such 
development. Poetry, romance, chivalry, never dreamed 
of such devotion to woman. It is a monumental fact, the 
acknowledged memorial of tardy justice, and the significant 
index of popular conviction and purpose. 

The history and philosophy of this movement, with some 
suggestive reflections, will constitute the topic of this ad- 
dress. 

The college at Macon, first known as the Georgia Female 
College, since the Yv'esleyan Female College, stands first upon 
the list in the order of existence. Projected in 1837, organ- 
ized in January, 1839, it still lives unencumbered and pros- 
perous. It had its embarrassments and its foes, its debts and 
its disappointments, even while its classes were full and its 
annual contributions to society were brilliant and useful. 
Itself an experiment, it has vindicated the wisdom of its 
projectors, confounded the predictions of its enemies, and I 
might say has revolutionized public opinion, corrected its 
errofs, enlightened its estimate of woman's influence, and 
brought into play new elements of power, conservative and 
efficient. A peculiar public spirit has been awakened; 

* Delivered July 10, 1856, in Madison, Ga., during the commence- 
ment exercises of the Madison Female College. — Editor. 
(90) 



WHY WOMEN SHOULD BE WELL EDUCATED. 91 

parental ambition has been roused. Village vies with vil- 
lage, city with city; the State is adorned with buildings, 
all beautiful, some magnificent. Decayed towns are re- 
vived, and this empire commonwealth is made the glory of 
her citizens and the wonder of her neighbors. Eastern, 
Middle, Western, Northern, and Southern Georgia are well 
supplied with these instrumentalities of education. A "fe- 
male college" has come to be the index of progress in the 
line of social advancement; the exponent of civilization, 
the front banner in the march of mind ; the central diamond 
in the diadem of that wondrous age we glorify as the nine- 
teenth century. As a stone cast into the bosom of the 
sleeping waters agitates them to their utmost boundaries, so 
the refluent waves of the movement in Macon seventeen 
years ago are sweeping out in circles wider and wider still. 
Already the undulations are beating at the base of your 
farthest mountains, rolling unchecked over your southern 
plains — on, still on, knowing neither weariness nor rest. 
Who shall, who would stay the tide? Albeit, we know not 
whereunto this thing may grow, who fears the consequences? 
Let it alone ; there is healing in its wave. It is waking the 
pulse of vitality in the stagnation of ages. It is pouring 
its crystal waters into the old Dead Sea of ignorance and 
prejudice, on whose blasted shores no flower could bloom, 
and whose only fruit was but bitterness and ashes. Let it 
alone; it is bearing upon its bosom the intellectual fortunes 
of unnumbered families, and is freighted with blessings for 
thousands more. 

This extraordinary development, however peculiar in 
some of its phases, is yet explicable on the most obvious 
principles of the human mind. Through long centuries 
and in every land woman has been strangely underrated - 
as to her intellect, her influence on mind, character, society, 
and government. Even in Christian countries, where juster 



views of her individual claims prevail, she has been appro- 
priated and confined to a sphere of action which, although 
legitimate to her sex and her relations, nevertheless circum- 
scribes and forestalls the powers capable of nobler deeds 
and more useful expansion. The opinion which restricts 
woman to the kitchen and the nursery, or which brings her 
forth on gala days — days of ceremony and festal gladness, 
just as we gather flowers to wreathe an arch or garland a 
bridal-hall — results from a radical misconception of wom- 
an's nature, of God's design, and of the world's social in- 
terest. Indeed, all the exclusive and restrictive theories of 
society and education which do not recognize woman as an 
intellectual helpmeet for man affiliate with that Asiatic 
barbarism which cloisters her when at home and veils her 
when she walks abroad. But " time, which overthrows the 
illusions of opinion and establishes the decisions of nature," 
has been working out a revolution of sentiment which, in 
the progress of knowledge and Christianity, will achieve 
and vindicate a new order of things. Like all other revo- 
lutions, it has its foes and its defeats, its rapid triumphs and 
its sudden arrests. But, from the day in which it was gra- 
ciously conceded that women had souls at all, the world's 
opinion has been approximating the truth; and, as the 
light brightens around it, it is correcting its former esti- 
mates, and providing for them more liberal arrangements. 
Now, when a great truth long hidden bursts upon the hu- 
man mind it startles, electrifies, impels. Forcing itself upon 
our convictions, in the light of its own demonstration, we 
wonder that what is so plain was not seen before, and, mor- 
tified by the disclosure of our stupidity, we make haste to 
repair the damages of our delinquency. The sense of in- 
justice made palpable to our understanding, and intensified 
by the noblest feelings of our nature, suggests the idea of 
atonement ; and we labor to obliterate the memory of our 



WHY WOMEN SHOULD BE WELL EDUCATED, 93 

neglect by heaping kindness on the victims of our error. 
Such a mood, it is true, is not favorable to a just discrimi- 
nation, to wise plans; and sometimes it exhausts itself in 
well-meant but very injudicious enterprises. Nevertheless, 
an ill-managed movement, if underlaid by fundamental 
truth, will rectify its own defects as experience reveals 
them, and will evolve at last, from its formative processes, a 
well-organized system, symmetrical, efficient, and abiding. 

The public mind of this country is now in this excited 
transition state. That woman, as one of the important 
agents in the constitution of society, needs and deserves 
culture and development is the common sentiment of Chris- 
tian lands; but the mode and the measure of her education 
are points concerning which there is great conflict of opin- 
ion. Although immense practical issues are involved, the 
question is speculative — a controversy in which there is no 
umpire but experiment. But that the experiment may be 
fair and conclusive, it is essential that those views which 
insist upon a thorough and extensive education of our 
daughters should prevail till results shall prove them un- 
safe and unwise. If lower and more rudimental standards 
should be adopted; the possible capabilities of woman's mind 
may never be developed ; and the evidence which such a 
partial system affords against deep and thorough training 
and in favor of superficial education, on the assumption of 
the constitutional incapacity of women for any thing better, 
is all negative. It proves nothing. The practice, though 
conformed to the theory, does not confirm it, because the 
opinion, which it ignores and denounces, is still left untest- 
ed; whereas on trial its wisdom and its truth might be 
demonstrated. The loss to the world by this one-sided, ten- 
tative process has been immeasurable — loss of character, 
influence, and power. AVhen, therefore, the advocates of a 
low, contracted, partial system appeal to society, its history, 



94 bishop pierce's sebmons and addresses. 

progress, and results, although they find many things ap- 
parently well adapted to their purpose, a closer examina- 
tion will reveal the fallacy of their arguments, and turn 
even their proofs against them. That women, under a mea- 

*ger, restricted system, should have exhibited so much judg- 
ment and taste, good sense and refinement, is evidence strong 
as demonstration of what they might be and would be un- 
der a liberal and enlightened economy of instruction. "What 
they have achieved is not the limit of their power ; what 
they are is not the perfection of their nature. That they 
have not been degraded in intellect and grown imbecile 
under all the disadvantages of their lot only shows that 
they are the inheritors of a moral and mental economy so 
celestial as to be exceedingly hard to spoil. That they 
have made good housewives, prudent mothers, and inter- 
esting companions, under a programme of duties and rela- 
tions which taught them that it was their business to feel 
and not to think, to sew and not to write, to look pretty 
and talk nonsense, rather than to aspire to knowledge and 
the legitimate influence of a social being, ought to close 
the argument and regenerate the policy of the world. 

Much has been said of the intellectual equality of the 
sexes, and this mooted question still arrays its combatants 
on either side. In this tournament I break no lance. The 
party which wins the victory grasps a barren scepter. If 
there be inequality, the difference is not greater than among 
individuals of the same sex; and in my judgment the whole 
theory of accommodatiDg education to what is peculiar and 

^distinctive in either boys or girls, to the exclusion of every 
thing for which there is a supposed inaptitude, is impolitic 
if it were practicable, and impracticable if it were politic. 
Minds, all minds, differ in many respects. Some are tardy, 
some are precocious in their development ; some reach their 
maximum of attainments and strength almost at a bound; 



WHY 

others toil on, step by step, and are accumulating for a life- 
time. These peculiarities manifest themselves only in the 
progress of life and education. They cannot be determined 
by the sagacity of the teacher, nor foretold by the science 
of the phrenologist. Besides, it is the business of education 
to aid nature, to remedy her defects — directing what is 
strong, and strengthening what is weak. The truth is that 
voluntary, earnest, persevering, protracted mental action is 
the chief secret of becoming wise and great. By it, a feeble 
mind may be trained to energy and distinction; without 
it, a mighty intellect will degenerate into imbecility. The 
differences of aptitudes and exhibition among men and 
women are not strictly constitutional, but referable mainly 
to their mental habits. Allowing — as I think is just and 
proper — a diversity of mental organization, yet I insist that 
all the elements of mind are common to both. 

The original combinations of these elements are endlessly 
diversified ; but the characteristic results are not more marked 
as between men and women than between men and men. 
The dissimilarity, which I concede, if not created by edu- 
cation — the education of the fireside, the school-house, and 
the world of social life — : is essentially modified by woman's 
social relations, and the passions and affections incident to 
those relations. The human mind is expanded or contract- 
ed, corrupted or refined, waxes into vigor or wanes into fee- 
bleness, according to the subjects of thought with which it 
is most familiar ; and if women are not capable of strong 
thought, of deep analysis, of prolonged research, it is rather 
from mental desuetude than original incapacity. Compelled 
by the necessities of her allotment to think much of little 
things — meeting all the expectations of society, as now con- 
stituted, without effort, and perhaps disqualified by a de- 
fective education for high and sustained mental action — 
it is not marvelous that so few women are distinguished for 



96 bishop pierce's sermons and addresses. 

great acumen and vigor of intellect. Even among men 
those are most distinguished for power of thought and felic- 
ity of expression whose professions and pursuits most con- 
stantly tax the thinking faculty on the high themes of states- 
manship, philosophy, and religion. The deep thoughts, the 
mature judgment, the continuous reasonings, for which the 
great among men are celebrated, are not natural or sponta- 
neous — the facile, untrained working of original powers. 
They are acquisitions, habits, the results of hard study and 
long practice; and, after all oui boasted preeminence, very 
few reach high distinction in the departments where we 
claim to excel. Profound thinkers are rare — the prodigies 
of their generation. The present age is wofully degen- 
erate; the race of great men is nearly extinct. England 
has now no Pitts or Peels or "Wellingtons ; France no Mira- 
beaus, Talleyrands, or Napoleons — or at most but one, and 
he is only " the nephew of his uncle." America has no 
more Calhouns, Clays, and Websters. 

Even in the world of literature the chief actors have ac- 
quired notoriety rather than fame — like Dickens, by the 
quaint, outlandish titles of his books ; like Thackeray, the 
strolling retailer of old court scandal ; or like Carlyle and 
Emerson, by the most affected, arbitrary, and unnatural use 
of their mother-tongue — beguiling the world into the belief 
that they are deep, when they are only dark; profound, be- 
cause they are unintelligible. In my humble opinion there 
is more mind, more sound wisdom, more wise, practical ideas 
in Hannah More's works than in all the ponderous tomes 
of the boasted German philosophy, The truth is, very great 
minds are rare in either sex ; but the inference that all the 
rest of mankind are constitutionally incapable of great im- 
provement would not be deemed a fair conclusion. Vari- 
ous solutions — natural, obvious, easy — can be found to ex- 
plain the fact without charging all the rest of us with 



WHY WOMEN SHOULD BE WELL EDUCATED. 97 

mental impotency. So I say in relation to women. Though 
not generally distinguished for intellect beyond the circle 
of their families and friends, yet the sex is not without rep- 
resentatives in all the varied walks of literature. The rea- 
sons for this are to be found first in the nature of their du- 
ties and the subjects with which they are most familiar — sub- 
jects which tend to fetter and dwarf the mind, and duties 
which leave no time for attention to any thing beyond the 
graceful, the light, the imaginative. No wonder, therefore, 
that females figure most in those departments most accord- 
ant with the delicacies of their physical and mental constitu- 
tion, and to which they are restricted partly by the appoint- 
ment of nature, but mainly by the decree of popular opinion. 
Society has not only denied to women the motives for 
strong mental effort, by which the ambition of men is roused 
to action, but it positively offers the temptation to rest in 
inglorious mediocrity as the more respectable and attract- 
ive. The love of admiration is natural to the human heart, 
nor is the passion stronger with women than with men, save 
that the former are more dependent for their personal influ- 
ence on their personal attractions. This common instinct 
of our nature seeks its gratification in those modes which 
observation and experience teach to be the most direct, the 
best adapted to popular taste. While, therefore, girls are 
made to believe that there is more power in a curl than in a 
thought, more witchery in complexion than in language, 
more attraction in graceful motion than in general knowl- 
edge, just so long the conventional notions of the world re- 
press intellectual development and foster frivolities of char- 
acter. The grave, the good, the great, are all parties to the 
policy which assures the female world that dress, figure, 
grace as to their persons, light conversation, frothy common- 
places, vapid inanities about beaux, courtship, and marri- 
age, are about all that is expected of them, and that she 
7 



98 bishop pierce's sermons and addresses. 

who excels in these things is the belle of the hour. Even 
wise men, in their gallantry, talk nonsense to women, as 
though politeness required them to condescend to those of 
low intellectual estate. i 

Under the fallacious views which prevail, the young peo- 
ple, in all their social intercourse and at every festal gath- 
ering, seem to have conspired to ignore knowledge, taste, 
ideas, worthy cf our rational nature, and to have resolved 
the charms of society into idle prattle, as unmeaning as the 
chattering of swallows. This abominable fashion does gross 
injustice to both parties. Men degrade their intellect in 
compliment to the fair, and the fair are betrayed by the 
compliment into unworthy estimates of themselves. This 
style of address/though intended to please, is actually an 
insult, as it implies an incapacity to appreciate any thing 
more sensible and exalted. Instead of listening well pleased 
with the twaddle of their obsequious admirers, I wish that 
women would resent this imputation upon their good sense, 
and compel the lords of creation into more rational conver- 
sation. I would as soon look to find the garden of Eden 
with its fruits and flowers on the icy shores of the circum- 
polar sea as to expect the emancipation of the female mind 
from the disabilities of the ruling fashion, unless women 
themselves pioneer the reform. But, ladies, in resenting 
the indignities which are perpetually offered you in life's 
daily walk, you must learn to discriminate. Amid the 
crowd of attendants who wait upon your smiles there are 
some with whom there has been a long, long famine of ideas. 
There is but a handful of meal in the barrel and a little 
oil in the cruse, and no prophet in the land to bless the 
scanty store. "They give you all; they can no more, 
though poor the offering be." Spare these, and keep your 
wrath for him who voluntarily makes a fool of himself be- 
cause he is talking to a woman. 



WHY WOMEN SHOULD, BE WELL EDUCATED. 99 

But that I may not be over-tedious, I will proceed to give 
positive reasons for the sound, thorough, extended educa- 
tion of woman. My first argument is scriptural and, I 
think, conclusive. The divine plan, as manifested in crea- 
tion and in the significant title by which Eve was desig- 
nated, indicates the true theory of the sexes as to their 
moral, intellectual, and social relations and duties. God 
made man and put him in the garden of Eden — a sacred 
inclosure, a paradise of delights. Eden and paradise are 
the synonyms of bliss — the types of heaven. Adam, the 
royal tenant, "made a little lower than the angels," was 
"monarch of all he surveyed." Earth fed him with her 
fruits; the crystal river that flowed through the miJst of 
the garden furnished him with drink ; the birds of the air 
regaled him with their songs; the beasts of the field ac- 
knowledged his supremacy. Innocent and pure, he walked 
and talked with God. But this unfallen intellect, this son 
of the morning, this occupant of a sinless world, sighed in 
solitude. What was wanting amid the munificence of his 
Creator's gifts? What did he need? A helpmeet. A 
helpmeet f Why; he had no house to be set to rights, no 
bread to bake, no garments to mend, no stockings to darn. 
None of the grave duties to which some theorizers would 
restrict the female world, for which we are told they were 
made, and for which alone they are fit, had any place in 
Adam's primal home. A helpmeet ! Yes ; the first man was 
alone, and it was not good for him. The glorious sun, the 
green earth, the sportive birds, the submissive beasts, were 
not companions. They could neither think nor talk nor 
feel. He sighed for sympathy, communion, bright eyes 
that would glow with admiration as they gazed with him 
on Eden's bloom ; a soft, sweet voice tc mingle its minstrelsy 
with the harmonies around him ; a heart attuned with his 
to love and praise; a mind to think and soar and wonder 



100 bishop pierce's sermons and addresses. 

amid creation's marvels ; and with him to bow in adoration 
to the One who made them all. He wanted his other self — 
his better half. So God made another, not like him but of 
him — a process, an emanation, an improvement of himself, 
a completion of the circle of being, himself duplicated and 
refined : Adam and Eve, man and woman, identical in their 
nature, their minds and hearts, their interests and desires. 
Such was the Divine idea of a helpmeet for man, and such 
was Adam's understanding of it. Any other mode of re- 
lief would have been alien to him, the sources of sympathy- 
would have been unlike, the bond of union wanting, the 
help would not have been meet — suitable — the twain could 
never ha T e become one. 

Exalt the mind of man as you may, a helpmeet for him 
must partake of the dignity. Glorify his affections, ally him 
with angels in his religious nature, she whom God has given 
him as a partner and companion must share iu his inherit- 
ance. Whatever high and holy trusts have been commit- 
ted to man — trusts dependent for their fulfillment not only 
upon sympathies and affections, but on mental oversight 
and guidance — it will follow that no order of help unac- 
companied with high intellectual endowments would have 
been suitable. Now, the argument is that if our Maker, in 
the original constitution of the sexes, adapted them to each 
other as companions and counselors, each with mind to 
think, heart to love, soul to aspire, then any system of edu- 
cation which exalts the one and circumscribes or degrades 
the other is wrong in principle and policy. 

That men ought to be educated is an accredited doctrine. 
The more they know the better. On this subject public 
opinion is a unit. Let me ask, then, Is an uneducated 
woman a helpmeet for an educated man? Is it right in 
society to foster a mode of instruction which dooms the 
noblest intellects to dwell alone or live ill-matched and un- 



WHY WOMEN SHOULD BE WELL EDUCATED. 101 

happy? The evils of such a state of things are not inci- 
dental or partial only ; they are inevitable and wide-spread. 
They disjoint the economy of nature, pervert the design of 
Heaven, in the only institution which has survived the doom 
and desolation of Eden. Marriage is honorable in all. It 
is of divine ordination, the origin of families, the nucleus of 
nations. No union is so intimate, no obligation so binding. 
Its consequences are momentous. The opinion which would 
degrade or abolish it is "a doctrine of devils." The senti- 
ment, however modified, which enfeebles its bonds or con- 
tracts its enjoyments is inimical to morals and social hap- 
piness. Constituting as it does an absolute communion of 
wishes, joys, and sorrows, it must be founded in those views 
and affections, cherished by those affinities of sentiment and 
taste, which make the parties capable of mutual association. 
He is an unhappy husband who would rather his wife 
should be seen than heard, knowing that she will make a 
better impression by the grace of her robes than by the 
poverty of her discourse. She is a poor wife who cannot 
get a good dinner, who does not keep her children clean 
and well-dressed, her person and her house neat and tidy ; 
but then a man wants intellectual communion — thought 
responsive to thought, soul kindling with soul, the joyous 
swell of kindred emotions and all the heaven of friendship, 
radiant with intellect and love. Leave woman untaught, 
her mind undeveloped, unenriched, and you bereave mar- 
riage of its significancy, and make her whom Heaven in- 
tended as a helper, companion, and friend a mere conven- 
ience and a toy. And the wretched man who, fascinated 
by her maiden charms, is betrayed by his fancy and his 
passion into indissoluble wedlock finds that he pleased his 
eyes, but broke his heart. Honor, self-respect, awe of pub- 
lic opinion, and, it may be, the fear of God, will hold him on 
to his fidelity; but the charm of wedded life is gone, the 



102 bishop pieece's sermons axd addresses. 

spell of love is broken, and, amid the blank desolation 
of the future, never returns to cheer him even with the 
memory of its smile. A marriage for money is a crime. A 
marriage for convenience is a life-long blunder. As long 
as human beings are sordid or sensual these ill-assorted un- 
ions will occur under the wisest and best social economy ; 
but it is unquestionably the interest of individuals and soci- 
ety to harmonize as far as possible the intellectual condi- 
tion of the sexes. 

In my opinion no little moral obligation is here involved, 
whether we seek to prevent evil or promote happiness. 
Such harmony is important as an agency in diminishing the 
jDrobabilities of unwise, unequal matches, and especially as 
it gives to woman the power to perpetuate her influence 
when the illusions of fancy have fled and stern reality 
comes to test her worth. Mind commands homage, and 
human nature pays its tribute of respect often even where 
virtue is wanting. How much more readily and profound- 
ly when its honors crown the loved one to whose graces 
and virtues the heart has already yielded its devotions. 
When the rosy light of young beauty has faded from the 
cheek, the lustrous eye jDaled with the sorrow and cares of 
maternal life, the rounded figure grown lank and languid, 
and shrunk from its voluptuous fullness, then that woman 
who presides at the domestic board is a crownless queen, 
unless intelligence be there to renew the dominion which 
beauty has lost. When wrinkles have furrowed the once 
fair and beaming brow, the raven hair grown thin and gray, 
and life's green leaves are all sear and yellow, then mind 
beaming forth, like sunlight upon a ruin, gilds age with 
splendor, and gives to love's fervid day a bright, tranquil, 
balmy eve, leaving the contented husband in doubt whether 
life was happiest in its morning raptures or now amid its 
sunset joys 



WHY WOMEN SHOULD BE WELL EDUCATED. 103 

So profound are my convictions on this subject that, in 
the further prosecution of the point under discussion, I vent- 
ure the declaration that the general education of women is 
more important to society than the general education of 
men. Or, if you like the negative form of the proposition 
better, the world would suffer less in its most vital interests 
from the common ignorance of men than from the common 
ignorance of women. In all that concerns morals and du- 
ties, the Bible is the only authority I acknowledge. To it 
I make my appeal ; from it I derive my argument. From 
the general account of creation, and especially from the 
specific directions which that Holy Book contains, it is plain 
that God regards the rearing and training of children as a 
paramount duty, a duty requiring mind, enlightened mind, 
mind educated and sanctified. The religious nurture of 
the young, wise family discipline, next to our personal sal- 
vation, and intimately connected with that, is life's chief 
duty, whether you regard its influence on mind, heart, char- 
acter, society, government, or the triumphs of the gospel of 
the Lord Jesus. The neglect of this is to-day the curse of 
the Church, the Bane of society, a calamity to the world. 
Almost all the evils in the country that either sadden or 
alarm us — irreverence, profanity, insubordination, restless- 
ness under legitimate authority — all originate here. Other 
evils are incidental, this is radical ; they are effects, this a 
cause — the cause which is fast multiplying sinners and 
crimes, undermining the law of the land, and defeating the 
Christianity of the Bible. I cannot believe that parents, 
Christian parents particularly — and these are as criminal as 
the rest — are positively indifferent and reckless as to the be- 
havior and moral fortunes of their children. Much of the 
evil of which I complain doubtless arises from ignorance, 
defective views of parental obligation, the inability to dis- 
cern principles and to forecast consequences, and much 



104 bishop pierce's sermons and addresses. 

perhaps from the intrinsic embarrassments of the task it- 
self 

To raise a child aright requires more sense than to manage 
the affairs of an empire. It is easier to solve questions of 
finance, commerce, agriculture, political economy, than to 
weigh the effect of a look, a tone, a word, upon the susceptibil- 
ities of a young, fresh, impressible, immortal spirit ; far easier 
to negotiate treaties, to unravel the complicated relations of 
one country with another, than to graft a right principle 
upon a wicked nature and make it live and grow ; than al- 
ways to tell when and how to punish an offending child ; 
than to measure with scrupulous exactness the language of 
reproof and praise. Now, that very much of this, subtle, 
intricate, embarrassing task devolves upon woman all agree; 
and that too at the very period of life when the difficulties 
are enhanced and complicated by the child's infancy of per- 
son and thought, and its ignorance of language — the very 
time anterior to those developments which indicate at once 
the defects of constitutional character and the disciplinary 
remedies which the case demands. The God of wisdom 
never committed the high destinies of man and government 
and eternity to woman without the endowment of those 
natural intellectual gifts which, duly cultivated, w T ould en- 
able her to accomplish her lofty mission. 

Allow me to say that if I were forced from a want of 
time and means to select from the curriculum of a polite 
and finished education, I should prefer languages to mathe- 
matics, a complete belles-lettres education to a partial one 
in any of the sciences, either for a boy or girl. Of course, 
if I could have it so, it should be thorough — universal for 
both. But I want to insist that the education of girls should 
be miuute, careful, profound if possible, iu one department 
which has been long neglected, or very partially attended 
to. I do not mean housewifery, important as it is* nor 



WHY WOMEN SHOULD BE WELL EDUCATED. 105 

mantua-makiDg, for Solomon in all his glory was never ar- 
rayed like one of our American lilies; nor millinery, for 
the ladies have carried that to such perfection that putting 
on a bonnet and taking it off amount to very much the same 
.thing. No; I mean mental philosophy in all its depart- 
ments — psychology, logic, or mind, its laws and powers, the 
passions and affections of our spiritual nature, the intellect, 
the will, the sensibilities. 

If the proper training of children demands, on the part 
of those who direct and govern them, deep knowledge of 
human nature and its secret springs of action, ability to 
trace actions to their principles and principles to their 
results, and wise discrimination of the effect of the same 
truth and of the same discipline on different minds and tem- 
peraments — and this no intelligent person will doubt or deny 
— then the argument is at an end, the proposition is estab- 
lished: women need all the light that learning can give. 
That authority may be intelligent, discriminating, effica- 
cious, the duties to be performed must be apprehended in 
all their magnitude and minuteness, and instruction and 
government adapted to what is peculiar in the moral and 
mental structure of the subjects of this embryo empire. 
That education ought to be suited to the nature cf woman, 
her relations and duties, I concede; but, in the name of 
the rising generation, I protest against the popular practical 
inferences that are drawn from the doctrine. A woman 
ought to be skilled in every department of domestic econ- 
omy. Let her rival Dorcas in garment-making, equal Mar- 
tha in getting up a dinner, excel Queen Esther in an even- 
ing party, but let her learn all this at home from maternal 
instruction and example. Never incorporate them with the 
school or the college. Let the manual labor humbug be 
counted with the things that were. We have tried study 
and farm operations and failed; we should fare no better 



106 bishop piercers sermons axd addresses. 

with books and trays, music and dress-patterns, recitations 
and millinery. 

Far be it from me to undervalue good bread, clean 
houses, neat, graceful housewifery. These things are es- 
sential to female dignity and respectability, important to 
domestic happiness. I admire them all, and pity the man, 
whether single or married, who has to live without them. 
But them comparatively speaking, these are but low at- 
tainments, and to excel in them — however creditable — but a 
meager ambition. Woman has a higher, holier, nobler mis- 
sion. Manners, taste, literature, laws, constitutions, all de- 
pend upon her sanative influence. She is " the power be- 
hind the throne" which mends or mars society. Her home 
is the fountain-head of influence — molding fashiou, regu- 
lating morals, inspiring public sentiment. Without her 
alliance law is weak, the pulpit powerless, opinion a reed 
shaken with the wind, and all the boasted conservatism of 
society no more to the rush of passion than a spider's web 
to a lion's leap. "Woman is Heaven's fiduciary trustee of 
the world's best interests. To her guardianship God com- 
mits the newborn spirit in its cradled infancy. The heart 
expands in the light of her love as a flower in the sunshine. 
Mind buds and blooms beneath her smile. Under her plastic 
hand the moral and intellectual elements form themselves 
into character, and society itself reeks with corruption or 
beams in virtue as she may be good or bad. To fell the 
forest, to guide the ship, to marshal the embattled hosts, to 
control the machinery of government, to wear the crown 
of eloquence, belong to man; but to woman God has in- 
trusted man himself. She molds the warrior and the hero, 
she inspires the patriot and the orator, she gives to genius 
its noblest impulses and to virtue its loftiest aims. To the 
hallowed ministry of her love the world is indebted for its 
happy homes; home, for its sweet attractions; childhood, for 



WHY WOMEN SHOULD BE WELL EDUCATED. 1C7 

its guardianship; man, for his happiness and repose; sick- 
ness, for its solace; the dying-chamber, for the last earthly 
light that beams amid its grief and gloom ; the grave, for 
the sweetest memorials that bloom upon its pulseless bosom ; 
and heaven itself, for thousands of the countless multitudes 
who shall swell the anthems of its eternity. 

Now, must all these high, holy tasks be abandoned to the 
intuitions, the untutored sensibilities of untaught women? 
Never; unless we mean to arrest the improvement of the 
world, extinguish the hopes of humanity, blight household 
joy, and restore the reign of night. The notion that the 
affections are contracted, the sensibilities indurated by 
knowledge, and that high mental training would unsex 
woman, giving her a heart of stone for a heart of flesh, 
deserves to be placed along-side of that modern discovery 
of some French philosopher that the earth is receding from 
the sun, growing colder, and will become a ball of ice, un- 
inhabited and uninhabitable. What! high cultivation un- 
veil modesty, dethrone love, ossify tenderness, wear off the 
downy bloom of female character, convert the American 
fair, the loveliest of Eve's descendants, into Amazons? 
"Why, knowledge constitutes the chief difference between 
savage and civilized life! Where do we find the noblest 
sentiments, the refinements of taste, the most unselfish im- 
jiulses; benevolence, with its wine and oil; love, bearing 
the burdens of age, cheering the sorrows of childhood, 
making home glad with its music and all life radiant with 
its charm? Not among the ignorant, the vulgar, but amid 
the arts, habits, comforts, and laws of well-educated hu- 
man beings. The power to think and the power to feel go 
together. A superficial head and a frivolous heart lie side 
by side. The shallow soil makes a barren field that never 
teems with the generous harvest, the very grass withereth 
" before it growcth up — wherewith the mower fillcth not 



108 bishop pierce's sermons and addresses. 

has hands, nor he that bindeth sheaves his bosom." A 
vain, silly, giddy woman has no head, and cannot think ; no 
heart, and cannot feel. In the garden of her soul there is 
neither bud nor blossom, flower nor fruit. But the modest, 
intelligent, refined woman "opens her mouth with wis- 
dom, and in her tongue is the law of kindness ; she looketh 
well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread 
of idleness. Her children rise up and call her blessed ; her 
husband also, and he praiseth her." Sensibility and wisdom, 
delicacy and strength, are not incompatible. 

Woman's heart is her glory and her crown; but her 
emotional nature will not lose its tenderness in the light 
of knowledge. The sunflower, and not the night-blooming 
cereus, is the type of her soul and its sensibility. Does 
the brook cease to run because the day-beam comes down 
to lave in its bright waters, making the pebbled bottom 
reflect the glory of the sky? No, no. ISor will the radi- 
ance of learning repress the genial current of woman's 
gushing emotions ; but rather, in the gladness of their flow, 
they will flash with superadded charms. Educate her 
worthily and wisely, and the very instincts of her being 
will rise to the dignity of sentiment. The vine, which is 
wont to creep, and soil itself with the dust of the earth, 
will be lifted up; twiniug its tendrils around the elevated 
mind, will unfold its blossoms in beauty, and emit a fra- 
grance sweeter than "the balm of a thousand flowers." 
Educate her worthily and wisely, and the affections, which 
else had grown rank in wild luxuriance, all pruned and 
trained, will hang their rich clusters in the sunshine, 
and — if you will allow me the language of heathen my- 
thology — the juice will be nectar for the gods. Educate 
her worthily and wisely, and every American home shall 
have its priestess and its altar, where patriotism shall 
learn its earliest lessons and religion burn its purest in- 



WHY WOMEN SHOULD BE WELL EDUCATED. 109 

cense. The generations to come, blazoned with the herald- 
ry of virtue, shall proclaim the sanctity and the success 
of her mission, and, by the blessing of God, a world re- 
formed shall be the appendix to her life's precious poem of 
love, tenderness, and truth. 



Paul's (Sommission to Preadi, 

BY DR. LOVICK PIERCE. 



" For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel ; not 
with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of 
none effect." (1 Cor. i. 17.) 

AS all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is 
profitable for doctrine, we may place our text at 
once upon its proper basis, and proceed to adjust hs 
terms and explain its rather singular aspect according to 
our view of its import. 

And first, were it meet to call any one of the apostles of 
our Lord Jesus Christ an appointee of his by eminence, we 
think all would unite on Paul. His epistles are nearly all 
prefaced with the same great governing fact — "Paul, an 
apostle of Jesus Christ;" once adding, "Not of men, neither 
by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father." And 
he once says he was "set for the defense of the gospel." 
Putting all these evidences of his divine credentials to- 
gether, and then seeing how slightly attached to the com- 
mission of preaching was the work of baptizing, there is 
much room left for wise suggestions, none for silly specula- 
tion. 

The commission of St. Paul to preach the gospel was 
either a perfect commission, without an absolute order to 
baptize, or else he preached under an imperfect commission, 
and pleads its origin and authority to be divine. Every 

*This sermon appeared in the Smithson Collection of Sermons. 
It fairly represents Dr. Pierce's method and style when in his prime. 
— Editor. 

(110) 



Paul's commission to preach. Ill 

one not mentally disabled to judge by an incautious surren- 
der of principle to creed will admit the first member of the 
proposition — to wit, that St. Paul had a perfect commission 
to preach the gospel, exclusive of an absolute order to bap- 
tize. And if this be ceded as a fact, it calls us all, with 
due distrust of many long-settled notions about baptism, to 
review old theories and conclusions, and see whether we 
may not in some way be "teaching for doctrines the com- 
mandments of men." 

One thing we assume as certain — viz., that if there may 
be issued a perfect commission to preach the gospel without 
an absolute order to baptize, then baptism as a thing or act 
is not an integrant portion of what the Scriptures mean by 
the charming epithet " gospel." For if it were, then would 
a commission to preach shut up every preacher of the gos- 
pel to the necessity of baptizing as a part of his office, and 
of preaching baptism as a part of the gospel. This will 
furnish the reason why so many self-deluded preachers 
preach baptism so much. It is because they look upon bap- 
tism — by which they mean immersion — as a portion of the 
gospel ; not as an incidental appendage of a Christian Church, 
but as a part of the very gospel. If they did not so under- 
stand it, they could not preach immersion as one of Christ's 
commands under the general commission, " Go, preach my 
gospel." And yet there are thousands of worthy preachers 
who preach this dogma as a portion of Christ's gospel. As 
a proof point-blank that they do so understand it, they de- 
ny the existence of a gospel Church in the absence of im- 
mersion, and hold that a pure and legitimate administrator 
must derive his right from his place in a regular descending 
line of the duly immersed. They also make obedience to 
this feature in the gospel they preach indispensable to Chris- 
tian communion. In a word, immersionists demand more 
and yield less at this point than anywhere else. A candi- 



112 bishop pierce's sermons and addresses. 

date may be a liberal on almost any point of general faith, 
but on the question of immersion, as demanded by emi- 
nence, no modification can be allowed. All must yield to 
one mode, and then hold every one not immersed as a stran- 
ger and a foreigner in the family of Christ. 

That any thing as subordinate to the gospel as baptizing 
is made in Paul's commission to preach, as set forth in the 
text, should have been exalted by men to such importance, 
is a point entitled to manly and fearless consideration. For 
let it be understood that the obligation of a minister to per- 
form baptism cannot fall below the value of baptism itself; 
and if the necessity to be baptized is to be enforced on the 
same ground that we enforce the obligation to believe, then 
there could not be any such subordination of baptism as 
that which is provided for in St. Paul's commission. But 
if baptism, like circumcision, is a mere certificate of inter- 
ests secured to the holder anterior to its institution — ob- 
tained without and entirely independent of it, it being only 
a sign, or seal, of an interest arising from a simple reliance 
on the covenant of grace through Christ Jesus — then Paul's 
failure to baptize was no infraction of any primary law or 
ground of saving faith. Thus to ignore baptizing was not 
to discard baptism as wrong or idle, but to declare its great 
inferiority when compared with preaching the gospel, it be- 
ing at best only an outward rite, valuable as a testimonial 
of an inward grace, but perfectly worthless in itself. And 
if such a deduction is at all legitimate, it follows as a mat- 
ter of course that the individual right of Christians to com- 
munion in the household of faith does not proceed in any- 
wise from baptism in view of original dependence of the 
one upon the other, but from the possession and exercise of 
that faith which justifies the ungodly into the groundwork 
and reason of which baptism did not and cannot enter. 
The whole value of Christian baptism is found in its rep- 



Paul's commission to p beach. 113 

resentative and social signification. In the first, it is the 
visible sign of imparted purity; in the second, it is the 
fraternal sign of the household of faith, and of the conso- 
ciation of converted souls in the Church of the living God, 
and derives its importance and authority from the divine 
law and rule of order. It is to be regarded as the initia- 
tory step into Church relationship; in taking which the 
initiated is understood to admit all the rights of the Church, 
and to pledge himself to a Christian observance of all the 
rules and regulations thereof. Hence it is conceded as a 
self-evident fact that any denominational law or usage in 
the establishment of an exclusive mode of baptism cannot 
have any force beyond their own limits as a reasonable 
ground of brotherly fellowship until they prove that a le- 
gitimate membership in the Church of Christ cannot be 
secured without a special mode of baptism, and that all 
variations or modifications of that mode render nugatory 
and an usurpation the claim of any person for brotherly 
communion and Christian fellowship — the claimant not be- 
ing in the Church. Our conclusion is that every such as- 
sumption of right and power in a Church is but a beguiling 
of Christ's children in a voluntary humility, a subjection 
of them to an usurped authority, and a policy of bigotry at 
war with Paul's directions, " Let no man therefore judge 
you in meat and drink," or in any thing immaterial to the 
faith that justifies and saves. Every such surrender of a 
great principle is the inauguration of an element of arrant 
bigotry. 

But the commission of St. Paul suggests another impor- 
tant idea — viz., that the office of baptizing may, by an 
overestimate of its necessity, minister to divisions in the 
Church, and that as an inferior office it may and should be 
laid over until this evil is cured. We assume this apostolic 
example as convincing proof that baptism can never have 
8 



114: BISHOP PIERCKS SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

importance enough to justify divisions in the Church; and 
therefore all such divisions founded on mere differences 
about baptism are evidences of bigotry on a larger scale 
than they are of orthodoxy. It is true that Paul ignored 
baptism for reasons stronger than could easily be shown in 
our day; but it is sufficient for our purpose in all cases 
where the evil is presumptively evident. Paul's movement 
in this instance is not alleged on higher ground. He only 
feared, as a possible case, that some one of the self-styled 
Paulites might, in partisan heat and folly, claim to be bap- 
tized in the name of Paul. But let not any imagine that 
Paul feared the formula of baptism would be altered so 
that the officiating minister would say, " I baptize thee in the 
name of Paul, the apostle of Jesus Christ." No; this was 
not what he feared, and what he so nobly deprecated. He 
feared that he w T ould seem to be making disciples unto him- 
self; this was what he meant by baptizing in his own name. 
There was the carnal leaven of envy and strife working lustily 
in Corinth. It was a choice time and place for a factionist. 
The revival — or, to speak more properly perhaps, the great 
religious awakening in Corinth came up under Paul's preach- 
ing; so much so that he afterward, in vindication of his 
ministerial success there against his calumniators, asserts 
his preemption right to the whole of them as his converts. 
But, waiving all advantages from position and priority, he 
nobly lived and labored only for Christ. He was one of a 
very few preachers, as I fear, who know that there cannot 
be an over-appreciation of themselves but at the deadly cost 
of an equal depreciation of Christ. He knew that the 
leaven of Paulism in the Church would be no less harmful 
than would the leaven of Herod. He counted a refusal to 
baptize his converts a saving policy demanded by Christ 
himself when set up against the error and idolatry of man- 
worship which enters into all these excessive admirations 



Paul's commission to preach. 115 

of men. Iu how many ways and in how many instances, 
think you, are baptisms virtually administered in the name 
of a Paul? I tell you I am not utterly mistaken, nor do I 
speak uncharitably, when I say that there are now in our 
midst preachers who would rejoice more at the conversion 
of any old or prominent member in another Church to the 
belief that immersion is the only mode of baptism — indeed, 
that it is the thing itself — than they would at the conver- 
sion of a sinner who had this sectarian faith before. Now, 
candor and conscience compel me to say that I want no 
other proof of the carnal origin of any.ecclesiasticism of 
this kind than these two — the bigotry that disowns and the 
zeal that proselytes with a gusto. And these little carnal 
outgushings can be found in no Church unless some strict 
orthodoxy of creed or punctilious observance of order not rec- 
ognized by other Churches as of such intrinsic value is raised 
to preeminent importance, and becomes a matter of glory- 
ing. There are thousands of these misguided immersion- 
ists who have imbued their spirits with admiration of this 
bantling idea until they really believe themselves the chosen 
sentinels of the ark of the covenant. Thus, every one who 
defends an idea under the belief that he is defending a di- 
vinity naturally becomes a sort of spiritual idolater. 

It is evident that Paul was too cautious in his course, or 
else many of his successors are far too incautious ; either 
he was over-scrupulous in guarding the great doctrine of 
grace, of exclusive grace in human salvation, or else we are 
generally too indifferent about the dangers of its corrup- 
tion. I fear there is too much glorying in men and modes 
for the purity of the Church. It is no better to make a 
sectarian now than it would have been in Paul to make a 
partisan. He determined to do neither by any official act 
of his; and therefore, after baptizing Crispus and Gaius, 
and subsequently Stephanas and his household, he practi- 



11G bishop pierce's sermons and addresses. 

cally ignored baptism, lest any should say he baptized in his 
own name — that is, baptized his converts as his own disci- 
ples and the friends of his party. Against such a chance, 
he said that Christ sent him not to baptize, but to preach 
the gospel — not to raise up a Paul party by going on to 
baptize, while some said, " I am of Paul," and of course would 
wish to be baptized by Paul as their champion leader. No ; 
he ceases to baptize any of them, knowing that if they 
thought baptism was any better at his hands, because he 
was their man, than it would be at the hands of any other 
minister, they were not religiously worth baptizing. And 
if they were baptized as much to honor Paul as to be hon- 
ored by him, they were to all practical ends baptized in the 
name of Paul. Here was a preacher for you — a model 
preacher. Where shall Ave find his successors? Can no 
such man be found in our times? Can we find anywhere 
now a warm-hearted immersionist who, when about to im- 
merse an uninformed subject, would say: "Christ did not 
send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel — that is, bap- 
tism is so little a thing that I do not look upon it as con- 
tained in the spirit of my commission ; it is only added as 
a thing of practical utility to the outward Church ; and if 
I thought you would look upon yourself as any more ac- 
ceptabfe to' Christ, any more worthy or welcome a member 
in his Church on account of this immersion, I would now 
desist." Baptism, like circumcision, is nothing— nothing 
in the same sense. Who ever heard any immersionist la- 
bor to convince his subjects that immersion, as a spiritual 
agency, was empty, dead, worthless in itself; that it was a 
mere religious form, and could not, by its mode, make re- 
ligion more valid? Now, brother, it were as well for you 
to make water itself your savior as the mode of applying 
it in baptism. We modestly say that if our immersion- 
ists would talk thus to their numerous disciples— and it 



Paul's commission to preach. 117 

is their absolute duty to talk so to them — there would be a 
decline in the estimated value of immersion. But right 
here arises the difficulty which presses so fearfully upon all 
sides of this question. The practical working in these days 
of all sectarian and partisan movements is exactly the op- 
posite of Paul's course. We risk wrong notions about cer- 
tain things — for instance, immersion itself — rather than de- 
press them to their proper measure for fear of unsettling 
some views already extravagant in devotion to this mode. 
Paul's idea was that non-baptism was a less evil to the Co- 
rinthian Church than baptism, with idolatrous elements 
wrapped up in it. Our modern immersionists recommend 
and defend their idolized mode of baptism as if satisfied 
that an error in mode is more to be dreaded than an excess 
of confidence in its God-pleasing letter. Hence, an ultra 
immersionist never thinks too much j3assed to the credit of 
immersion until you say it is meritorious enough to super- 
sede Christ's merit; then, alarmed and horrified, he raises 
his wail. So you do not reach the point where you may say : 
"There is no gospel obedience without it, no Church without 
it, no ground of Christian communion without it. It is 
Christ's chosen and only mode of baptism Christ has the 
same views of immersion and preference for it that we have. 
And I believe that God is just as much pleased with me on 
account of my having followed him through his 'liquid 
grave' as I am with myself." Every immersionist that 
does not feel and think thus enough to justify him in saying 
so ought to be ashamed of his adhesion to his party; for if 
all this is not true, the whole ground of modal baptism is only 
a delusive mirage. But the delight with which every water- 
worshiping spirit hears the immersionist extol and magnify 
the mode of his baptism is proof conclusive of his devotion 
to mode. The credentials under which he acts must, there- 
fore, differ from those which Christ gave to Paul in so far 



118 BISHOP PIERCE 'S SEBMONS AXD ADDRESSES. 

as to make baptism a part of the gospel and its administra- 
tion a paramount duty. Hence, a stress and meaning are 
placed on every phase of this wonderful symbol so as to 
magnify a mode. 

But once more we will return to our stand-point — the di- 
vision of the Church in connection with baptizing. Have 
not these latter days furnished men of popular ministerial 
prominence who have rent in twain a Church of years and 
of well-earned fame on the ground of baptism? Kot indeed 
about its mode, but about sequences involved in the extrav- 
agant notions entertained concerning the mere mode. The 
Church as it was made immersion indispensable to gospel 
obedience. The great reformer desired the Church to go 
farther and increase the necessity for this obedience by mak- 
ing immersion, when believingly received, the guarantee of 
regeneration ; thus seemingly denying the doctrine of bap- 
tismal regeneration, and yet teaching that the Spirit is so 
resident in the word, or letter, as to render obedience to the 
letter indispensable to the offices of the Spirit, and those 
offices a never-failing certainty upon such obedience. It 
was a magnificent idea for such as labored under the modal 
lunacy. It is a matter of wonder to me how Mr. Campbell 
came to make immersion such a central point in this brief 
programme of spiritual development. It is, however, ret- 
rospectively a very suggestive incident. The germ of Camp- 
bellism is found in the overestimated value of immersion. 
Whenever an enhanced value is attributed to outward forms 
of religion, it always leads to theoretical dogmas or to sac- 
ramental sanctification. The Campbellite heresy is the full- 
est development of what we understand to have been the 
evil deprecated by St. Paul — "the baptizing in his own 
name " — which the world ever saw. But who supposes that 
Mr. Campbell ever felt this horror of having disciples bap- 
tized in his name as a champion and a leader? And yet to 



PAULS COMMISSION TO PREACH. 119 



prevent a similar evil Paul was commissioned to preach the 
gospel without baptizing, because to baptize and make a 
hobby of it would have ministered to party feuds; and bap- 
tism was considered of too little value to the Church to be 
practiced at such cost of vital principle. 

The argument up to this point has been to show that bap- 
tizing in Paul's commission to preach was only incidental 
and not imperative as though it were essential in carrying 
out the high behests of Heaven, as some seem to regard it. 
And being so clearly a contingent duty, it cannot be exalted 
into a consideration of such intrinsic value as to constitute 
a sine qua non in settling the ground of Christian fellow- 
ship, thereby rendering null and void all higher and more 
spiritual qualifications, such as spiritual regeneration. And 
if the whole question of baptism is too insignificant to jus- 
tify divisions in a Church, the mode of baptism must fur- 
nish still less justifiable ground for discord and division in 
the whole Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. This much 
for the conditiona 1 part of Paul's divine commission. Next 
comeb the positive and imperative. He was sent to preach 
the gospel. How did he do it? 

Paul's preaching of the gospel was marked by three dis- 
tinguishing features: in its matter, in its manner, and in its 
extent. To each of these let us pay a passing notice. 

" Christ and him crucified " was his constant theme. His 
first public discourse was in the synagogues at Damascus to 
prove that Christ was the Son of God. As he increased in 
strength, he mightily confounded the Jews, proving that 
Jesus was the very Christ. Here was to them the rock of 
offense, and here he applied his arguments. At Thessalo- 
nica he entered into their synagogue, "and three Sabbath- 
days reasoned with them out of the Scriptures, opening and 
alleging that Christ must needs have suffered, and risen 
again from the dead ; and that this Jesus, whom I preach 



120 bishop pierce's sermons and addresses. 



unto you, is Christ." Most of his epistles open with the rec- 
ognition of* Jesus as the Messiah of God. To the Romans 
his salutation is: "Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to 
be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God (which he 
had promised afore by his prophets in the Holy Scriptures), 
concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made 
of the seed of David according to the flesh ; and declared 
to be the Son of God, with power, according to the Spirit 
of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead." Here is a 
brief view of the gospel as Paul preached it. He began 
with Christ and ended with Christ. 

To the Church at Corinth he said: "For I determined 
not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and 
him crucified." To the Galatians: "God forbid that I 
should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the 
world. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth 
any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature," or a 
new creation. Thus he teaches us that in the mighty work 
of the soul's regeneration there is nothing that counts save 
Christ himself. For this most sufficient reason he says to 
the Philippians: "And be found in him, not having mine 
own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is 
through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of 
God by faith." He preached Christ as the end of the law 
for righteousness to every one that believed. The law of 
the Spirit of life which makes believers free from the law i 
of sin and death he placed in Christ. Deliverance from 
the noisome body of death he ascribed to Christ. Such, in- 
deed, was his estimate of Christ that he proudly declares 
his loss of all things — a loss too which was the result of 
deliberate choice — for the excellency of the knowledge of 
Christ Jesus his Lord. Nay, more ; he gloried also in the 
marks of the Lord Jesus which he bore in his bodv — the 



Paul's commission to preach. 121 



marks of whips and the enduring scars of stonings, all suf- 
fered for preaching Christ. He preached this gospel from 
prison and prison-bounds; he preached it in chains. He 
was transported in this condition from Jerusalem to Cesarea, 
and from Cesarea to Rome. To the Romans he declared 
in his epistle : " For I am not ashamed of the gospel of 
Christ ; for it is the power of God unto salvation to every 
one that believeth ; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek." 
He preached Christ, the wisdom of God, and the power of 
God. He declared that in Christ dwelt all the power of the 
Godhead bodily, and that believers are complete in him — 
need no other ingredients in their religion, Christ being all 
and in all. To his merit nothing could be added, especially 
nothing by ceremonial washings. Jewish ablutions were 
all annulled, and Jewish sacrifices abolished, and the king- 
dom of heaven was set up. But outward things could not 
become of any more worth after the setting up of the Mes- 
siah's kingdom than they were before. How could they? 
Could Christ make water baptism of more value in the Chris- 
tian religion than circumcision was in the Jewish? Surely 
not. For this would have been to put away one ceremo- 
nial on account of its unprofitableness and substitute it by 
another equally worthless as a saving element. If no sav- 
ing virtue could be, imparted to circumcision, none can be 
to water baptism. The two impossibilities are just equal. 
Here we see further evidence that Christ did not send Paul 
to baptize. Paul wrote and spoke on every essential prin- 
ciple of salvation, and yet there is not a word from him on 
this now mooted question, except an incidental disclaimer 
to the Christian validity of John's baptism as related in 
Acts, nineteenth chapter. And this may safely be regarded 
as one of many instances in which Paul, being set for the 
defense of the gospel, interposed his apostolic authority 
against the incorporation of any one element of Jewish re- 



122 bishop pierce's sermons and addresses. 

ligion into the gospel of Christ. Paul knew that to admit 
these twelve disciples into the fellowship of the Ephesian 
Church upon the authority of John's baptism would be 
construed as accepting a rite which did not demand the 
acknowledgment of the trinity in unity of the everlasting 
Godhead, a circumstance which demolishes forever the bap- 
tism of John as an example for Christians. It is perfectly 
immaterial by what mode John baptized ; all must confess 
that his baptism passed away with his peculiar office and 
dispensation; and with his baptism, its mode. Its effete 
and imperfect character was declared by the order of Paul 
that those disciples should be baptized in the name of the 
Lord Jesus, which was done by some other minister besides 
Paul. But Paul ceremonially laid his hands on them, and 
they then received the Holy Ghost, of whom they had sig- 
nificantly learned in their Christian baptism. In view of 
these and other considerations not less grave, it is to us a 
most surprising fact that, ever since our earliest recollec- 
tion, there have been persons claiming the right ot teach- 
ing as if by eminence, who hold the preposterous notion 
that Christ's baptism by John before the public was an ex- 
ample to be followed by his disciples, and who have taught 
in all cases of immersion under their auspices that the gist 
of the thing consists in its being obedience to Christ's ex- 
ample. And yet a mind not crippled by prejudice will see 
at once that it was impossible for Christ to be baptized, at 
any time or in any mode, simply as an example for his fol- 
lowers. Neither his character nor his order left to him the 
possibility of receiving John's baptism or his own as an ex- 
ample for believers. Example proper cannot be set in cases 
where the conditions and moral obligations are essentially 
dissimilar. Where, Ave ask, in the name of unprejudiced 
candor, is it found that Christ's ceremonial consecration to 
the office of God's High-priest on earth, in the river Jordan, 



Paul's commission to preach. 123 

by John the baptizer, the only official of God who could 
befittingly perform this consecration of Jesus to his public 
office as a divine teacher — where, we ask, is it found that 
this sui generis baptism, or Jewish priestly washing, was 
done or designed as an example for Christians to follow in 
their baptism? I confess that to meet with men of good 
capacity in other respects, who can doggedly defend the idea 
that Christ took up John's baptism, grafted on to it a differ- 
ent ceremonial, and then made his own baptism by John an 
example for believers' baptism, leaves me less ground of 
confidence in the reliability of human opinion, where prej- 
udice exist*, than I am willing to admit. 

In all Paul's preaching there is little, very little, heard 
of baptism. Not a word did he say about baptism as if it 
were a doctrine proper, or any thing like a doctrine, of the 
gospel. Not a sermon did he ever preach in vindication of 
baptism in any way or as to any mode. What he did say 
referred to the spiritual truths acknowledged and vows as- 
sumed by baptism in the name of Christ. It only went to 
prove this one thing: that the baptized renounced sin, and 
professed full and implicit faith in Christ Jesus, and in all 
the grand and gracious benefits of his death ; so much so that 
they were said to be baptized into Christ's death. Now, I 
would like to know why any mode of baptism may not lead 
the mind, by ceremonial allusion, to the death of Christ. 
May not the man who is baptized in the name and as the 
disciple of Jesus Christ thus manifest his sole reliance on 
the cross, and his obligation to die unto sin, without any 
literal resemblance between the mode of his baptism and 
the mode of Christ's death? 

We come next to speak of the manner of Paul's preach- 
ing. This was of no less decided a character than was the 
matter. The general manner of Paul's preaching, as to style, 
was argumentative. We judge that his epistles afford un- 



124 bishop pierce's sermons axd addresses. 

questionable specimens both of the matter and manner of 
his synagogue discourses. Luke, in the Acts, tells us plain- 
ly that he did preach after this form. His reasoning seems 
to have been after the fashion of Christ's instruction to his 
disciples after his resurrection — namely, that if they had 
understood the prophecies concerning him, and had believed 
them, they would never have felt a jostle in the ground- 
work or in the frame-work of their faith. Hence, begin- 
ning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded to them 
in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. what 
a discourse that must have been! How often have I felt 
inclined to wish that I could have heard it! But we have 
the rich skeleton of it still unimpaired. It was somewhat 
after this divine model that Paul preached the gospel. At 
Thessalonica, for instance, he entered the synagogue, and 
three Sabbath-days reasoned with the Jews out ot the Holy 
Scriptures, opening and alleging that Christ must needs have 
suffered, and entered into his glory. "And this crucified 
Jesus, about whom Jerusalem and all Judea have been so 
excited and confounded, is the veritable Christ — the Christ 
described by your prophets. Look and see. ISTo one but 
Jesus, whom you have crucified, could ever answer the de- 
scription given of Messiah by Isaiah." * Go, guilty unbe- 
liever, compare notes with these delineated characteristics 
of Christ, and see if you can conceive of a mere Jewish 
prince entering upon his glory without suffering, and make 
such a prince the promised Prince of peace. God's Mes- 
siah is foretold by all your prophets so minutely that his 
entrance into Jerusalem upon an ass, and the foal of an 
ass — as the prophet had phrased it ; probably a young, un- 
broken ass — was as necessary to meet that vastly significant 
monosyllable "needs" — Christ must "needs" suffer, and en- 
ter his glory — as was his crucifixion upon the hill of Cal- 

* Isaiah liii. 3. 



Paul's commission to preach. 125 

vary. It was necessary that all prophecies concerning 
Christ should be literally fulfilled; and all were so fulfilled; 
and then he cried, "It is finished!" 

But Paul's manner of preaching the gospel, as it regards 
style, is more fully set forth in his first letter to the Corin- 
thians. Corinth was one of the proud and populous cities 
where this missionary apostle broke ground himself — a city 
where false apostles tried to oust him, and made it necessary 
that he should boast himself a little. They sought to de- 
preciate Paul by ridicule and by insinuations derogatory to 
his integrity. But all these attempts were weakened into 
mere pestiferous breath by his apostolic signs and seals, to 
which he could so undeniably appeal. He claimed to have 
begotten the whole of them in Christ Jesus ; so that, how- 
ever many instructors they might have, they had only one 
ministerial, spiritual Father. On this ground he claimed 
their Christian affiliation. But as Corinth was a hot-bed of 
factionists, it afforded a fine opportunity for proselyters. 
But how did Paul break ground in Corinth? He says: "I 
came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declar- 
ing unto you the testimony of God. And I was with you in 
weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech 
and my preaching was not with enticing w r ords of man's 
wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power; 
that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but 
in the power of God." Whether Paul intended any differ- 
ence between his speech and his preaching, and if so, what, 
we are not advised ; but we suppose the terms to have been 
used then, as they are now, to distinguish between a sermon 
proper and a hortatory address on the general subject of 
religion. But be the difference what it may, his style was 
the same in each. It consisted in the recital of God's tes- 
timonies, or truths, as found in the Scriptures of the Old 
Testament. These were brought forward, and their appli- 



126 BISHOP pierce's sermons and addresses. 

cation to Christ and their fulfillment in him and by him 
were simply declared. None of the apostles seem to have 
felt it a duty or a necessity to prove God's word true. They 
simply assumed and affirmed its truth, and called upon sin- 
ners to believe it, and to deport themselves accordingly. 
They did not stand at the door of a sinner's heart and plead 
with him to yield to the chances of a verdict against him- 
self; but that they took a verdict already found, and walked 
into the heart's guilty chamber and, exhibiting Jehovah's 
bill of complaints, called upon him to plead "guilty "as to 
his conscience, was clearly the fact, and judgment was at 
once entered up. 

This manner of preaching, it is to be feared, has been 
too long neglected, and a reliance on logical reasoning, such 
as might appear well in a lawyer before a court and jury, 
or in a statesman before his peers and his country, has been 
substituted for that faith which, declares God's testimonies, 
and leaves him to work out their verity by the demonstra- 
tion of his Spirit and power. Or if there should be any 
approach to it, it is done rather in the way of a professional 
performance than as a mere agency to be made powerful 
and efficient by the Holy Ghost. AVe do not feel that we 
are, in a peculiar sense, laborers together with God — embas- 
sadors for Christ, sent not so much to negotiate about terms as 
to demand submission. It will require the disclosures of the 
last day to tell what has been lost to the Church by the 
error of her ministers in placing too much reliance on the 
wisdom of words. The hope of demolishing the fortresses 
of unbelief and sin by mental troops or logical detach- 
ments is a vain hope, at least in our general warfare. Sin- 
ners must be arraigned before the law and the testimony of 
God, charged with a consciousness of their guilt, and left to 
the demonstration of the Spirit and of power. This is the 
way in which ministers ought to preach; and at this point 



PAUL'S COMMISSION TO PREACH. 127 

arises the need of prayer by the Church, for the want of 
which much preaching is lost. The Holy Spirit is given 
in answer to prayer. 

But it is time for us to subject our text in another of 
its peculiar aspects to a more critical examination. Paul's 
commission to preach the gospel, as it seems in the language 
of the text, made his obligation to baptize so contingent 
that he did not consider it a part of his call at all. Strange 
procedure this, if baptism is what our Baptist friends claim 
it to be — the door into the Church and the ordeal of obedi- 
ence. But his call to preach the gospel was a positive call 
in two aspects: first, he was to preach it; and secondly, he 
was to preach it without wisdom of words — that is, without 
any connection with the philosophy of Greece or Rome, or 
any dependence upon mere excellency of speech. This is 
no denunciation of a pure and good style in preaching, but 
a simple declaration that the style of preaching, so far as it 
concerns grammar and rhetoric, or even logic, philosophy, 
and oratory itself, is not the medium of spiritual power and 
success. This medium is found in the divine testimonies 
themselves. Wisdom of words cannot energize the truth 
with such power as dead souls demand. Indeed, if wisdom 
of words could add any thing in the way of saving energy 
to the word of God's grace, then would it be settled that 
the divine word, like a musical instrument, gives forth bet- 
ter or worse sounds according to the artistic skill of the 
performer. Not so, however, with the minister of the gos- 
pel. He strikes the keys of gospel truth and grace ; and, 
disdaining all the artistic rules which the fastidious taste 
of the auditors of the age may seek to impose upon him, 
he thunders from Sinai or weeps and wooes from Calvary as 
he judges best, and quietly leaves all issues to God's Holy 
Spirit. 

But there was a positive prohibition in Paul's commission 



128 bishop piebce's sebmons and addbesses. 

to preach. This negative part of his obligation is couched 
in terms of such import as to demand investigation with 
godly jealousy. The temptation to preach the gospel with 
wisdom of words was never greater than at this time ; and 
the reason of its forbiddance is not entirely transparent to 
all minds. It is lest by wisdom of words we make the cross 
— or what we may consider the preaching of the cross it- 
self — of none effect. This danger of burying the cross out 
of sight by wisdom of words, so as to destroy its meaning 
and power, is utterly unintelligible to carnal minds. They 
have not learned to distinguish between the proud delight 
they take in the poetic drapery cast about the cross by the 
delicate imaginings of their preacher and the cross as it ex- 
hibits the love of the Father in the gift of the Son, and the 
love of the Son in dying for sinners. And yet in seeing 
and feeling this very distinction lies the very life of the 
cross. It is possible for a master of oratory so to drape 
the cross as to lead listeners to honor and glorify them- 
selves, either in their heroic censure of the scribes and 
Pharisees for the cruel treatment of Christ, or else in 
their enthusiastic admiration of his life and death as the 
Prince of philanthropists. But with him as the Lamb of 
God, taking away the sins of the world, they feel no ador- 
ing sympathy. The cross, in this high sense, is made of 
none effect. 

This prohibition, so justly imposed by Christ upon his 
preachers, while it deprecated as weak and unavailing the 
wisdom of the world which had labored— but with constant 
failure — to make God known in former ages, looked no less 
to the more modern inventions of a proud philosophy seek- 
ing to rid itself of the necessity of dependence on the doc- 
trine of a positive inspiration of the Scriptures for faith 
and salvation, with the special view of avoiding that mys- 
terv of godliness, the incarnation, and of bringing Chris- 



Paul's commission to preach. 129 

tianity sufficiently under the auspices of some school of Ger- 
man neology to make the story of the cross more of a car- 
nival for the revelry of reason than a kneeling-place lor 
penitents. This tendency to bring the great central doe- 
trine of the gospel — Christ crucified, crucified vicariously — 
into pleasant odor with a rationalistic philosophy is ditfus- 
ing itself more and more into every new modification of 
theology. It is to be detected wherever it gains a foot- 
hold by frequent gentle insinuations that there is a great 
deal of the human as well as of the divine mind to be looked 
for in the Bible. And they soon learn to make this want 
of inspiration as broad as the flattered cravings of a world- 
ly spirit may demand. Many of these American neologists 
are strangely wrapped up in a modernized Sweden borgian- 
ism. They are wonderfully familiar with ideal spirits; can 
almost see and feel them ; have no dread of them. But 
watch these religious lunatics, and if they belong at all, in 
their own classification, to the rationalise philosophers, they 
are apt to wind up their rhapsody with a most respectful 
and religious announcement of their Bible creed: "I be- 
lieve in one true and living God." This is Deism as it is 
cultivated in the Church by the Unitarians of our day. 
Deism used to manifest itself by epithets of abuse lavished 
against Christ; since its baptism and reception into the 
Church, it only believes in one true and living God. But 
its wisdom of words has made the cross of none effect. 

There remains one other view of this subject to which we 
desire to call particular attention : it is the sense in which 
we should understand " excellency of speech " to be forbid- 
den in Paul's commission to preach the gospel. There does 
not seem to us any sense in which it can be taken as con- 
tradistinguished from "wisdom of words," except that of 
composition; or, if there be any other or further sense, it 
must be that of fine elocution. Now, how is it that either 
9 



130 BISHOP PIERCE'S SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

or both of these pleasant accomplishments can make the 
gospel of none effect? There are several ways in which 
they might lead to such a result. There might be in the 
preacher himself such a looking to mannerism as to vitiate 
simple faith in the word ; or there might be in the Church 
such a readiness to account for success by the charmino- 
style and captivating eloquence of the preacher as to ren- 
der it necessary that God should withhold his Spirit in or- 
der to save the Church from this man-worship, and to pre- 
serve unmixed to the end of time the pristine view of effi- 
ciency — " It is God that giveth the increase." 

But our thoughts lead us to the conclusion that this ex- 
cellency of speech may be applied directly and without 
any forcing to the practice — in these days too common 
among us — of writing and reading sermons. Why, we ask, 
do so many ministers of a certain order of taste go to the 
trouble of writing their sermons — for it is troublesome when 
viewed in connection with life's many calls — if it is not for 
"excellency of speech or of wisdom." I do not think, after 
all the ingenious excuses given by the advocates of this per- 
nicious practice, that but one ruling reason can be found 
for its adoption and use, and that is desire to attain excel- 
lency of speech and of wisdom. If these polished preachers 
believed that they could, by carefully conning over their ris- 
ing thoughts and entering the pulpit from knees of wrest- 
ling prayer, produce an extemporaneous discourse which 
would elicit as much praise from the elite as one they can 
bring forth in manuscript from their studies after days of 
thinking, does any one suppose that they would write and 
read their sermons? Certainly not. There is not one of 
them who imagines that truth is any more truth because it 
is first written; and certainly it does not add any thing to 
the sublime grandeur of the pulpit to see a preacher thumb- 
ins down his sermon for fear that a puff of wind will blow 



PAULS COMMISSION TO PREACH. 131 

out his light, or fixing his eyes on every change in his posi- 
tion as if he revolved on an axis. And if no vital advan- 
tage is to be gained by writing a sermon, why do it? We 
answer again, It is for the sake of excellency of speech 
and of wisdom. It is not that the sermon may be more 
impregnated with truth, but merely that it may accord with 
grammar and rhetoric, and be pronounced a chaste and 
beautiful piece of English composition. And here, my dear 
brother, let me tell you for your mortification that I often 
hear men who are men pronounce your discourses very beau- 
tiful compositions but very poor sermons. 

But we do not play off, because we are either afraid or 
ashamed of our position — which is that, as a general result, 
the writing and reading of sermons for the common uses of 
preaching make the cross of none effect. Does not # the 
history of the pulpit everywhere prove beyond the possibil- 
ity of denial that discourses first written and then read, or 
written and pronounced, are somehow shorn of their wonted 
power? Who ever saw under this form of preaching any 
of that heart-stirring influence which precedes and accom- 
panies revivals of religion ? And does not every one know 
that a simple sermon of that sort — to say nothing of a series 
of them — is deprecated as an evil in times of revival? 
There is, as a matter of necessity — doubtless of necessity — 
an absence of that peculiar unction which seems to give a 
sort of almightiness to a gospel sermon when it gushes like 
a crystal stream fresh from the baptized heart of the preacher. 
Here every emotion expressed is a truthful thermometer of 
love divine within. But tell me nothing about it ; my mind 
is clear that it must often happen in the delivery of written 
sermons that the emotions are merely artificial. They may 
appear in the right place in the programme, but they are 
unnatural and unable to call up their kindred tribe in 
others. 



152 bishop pierce's sermons and addresses. 

The ground I take involves so much that is exceedingly 
delicate that modesty itself restrains me. This much, how- 
ever, I must say for myself: that whether mine is an ab- 
normal mind or not, one thing is certain, I cannot feel un- 
der a written sermon as I can under an extemporaneous 
one ; and I believe that the common sense of mankind has, 
by a general disapproval of the practice, given a verdict 
against it. It is an innate desire, partaking of the nature 
of a simple appetite, to crave feeling in all public addresses 
which would lead us to action in matters of interest. The 
extent to which a speaker can carry our active sympathies 
with him is the measure of his probable success. And if 
nearly all the results of speaking are in favor of extempo- 
raneous discourses as most efficient, why will ministers who 
could if they would extemporize well persist in this dull 
round of reading, disliked by nine-tenths of mankind, if it 
is not for the eclat of excellency of speech ? I do fear for 
all my friends who are about to inure their minds to this 
incubus on fine natural powers of speech. It is true — cer- 
tainly true — that if a sermon-reader could have in his man- 
uscript every word just as it would have risen in an im- 
promptu discourse — fresh gushings of a present, internal 
fountain of feeling — yet when read those words would fall 
on the ears and hearts of his audience like weary, worn- 
out winds. The curse of inefficiency has been universally 
stamped upon written sermons when read to an audience 
and called preaching. If badly read, it is murder; and if 
well, it is agreed that the man in the desk is a good writer 
and a fine reader; but no one ever regards any thing as 
preaching proper unless it is generated and delivered as 
an impromptu production; all else is called preaching 
merely by grace. Every congregation that requires the 
pastor to serve it with prepared sermons — that is, sermons 
prepared to be read — is found to be as unmoved in all the 



Paul's commission to preach. 133 

emotional springs of piety as a skeleton. Indeed, the un- 
derlying and prompting motive in those cases is generally 
quietism. But in these time-serving movements, as they 
creep in among us, there is an unsuspected element of vain- 
glory. I have never conversed with a volunteer in this 
line of Methodist preaching who did not leave me decid- 
edly under the conviction that ambition after excellency of 
speech and of wisdom was the real motive prompting him 
in the premises; and the avowed motive is to insure the 
esteem and gain the ear of the well-informed. This all 
looks well — looks right; but somehow it does not work 
well. It is condemned by the comparative j^ractical results. 
There is some way in which this reliance on excellency of 
speech vitiates the gospel, some way in which the cross is 
made of none effect. Hence, St. Paul would not preach 
the gospel with excellency of speech or of wisdom. If he 
had pertinaciously adhered to all the school rules of com- 
position and oratory as practiced by lawyers and senators, 
his power would have been located in his oratory, using 
the word "oratory" in its generic sense. But, waiving all 
these facilities of speech, he simply declared God's testimo- 
nies. He planted himself on the truth of God's revelation, 
and demanded belief in it and conformity of life to it. He 
never gave himself any trouble about the strict conformity 
of his speech and preaching to every law of grammar and 
every rule of rhetoric, but declared the testimonies of his 
God in demonstration of the Spirit and of pow r er. In his 
preaching the cross was unclraped ; it stood out naked, the 
center and soul of the gospel, and the only hope of sin- 
ners. 

Having considered what seems to have been optional and 
what imperative in Paul's call to preach the gospel, to wit, 
the work of baptizing, and also both the positive and the neg- 
ative parts of what was imperative in his commission, and 



134 bishop pierce's sermons axd addresses. 

having shown moreover how he did preach, both as to mat- 
ter and manner, we come finally to say a few things on the 
extent of his labors. 

There were but few features in Paul's personal ministry 
more striking than the extent and abundance of his preach- 
ing. Referring to abundance, he says: "In labors more 
abundant." In reference to his field he says: "So that 
from Jerusalem, and round about unto Illyricum, I have 
fully preached the gospel of Christ. Yea, so have I strived 
to preach the gospel, not where Christ was named, lest I 
should build on another man's foundation ; but as it is Avrit- 
ten, To whom he was not spoken of, they shall see ; and they 
that have not heard shall understand." "Circuit-rider" 
was once the sobriquet of a Methodist preacher. It was 
then used as a depreciative term. Circuit-riding was re- 
garded as a low employment. But here was a precedent 
in circuit-riding — or perhaps in Paul's case it was circuit- 
walking — which fully justifies the Methodist in riding cir- 
cuits. It is the best plan in the world for the wide and 
easy spread of gospel truth. It seeks to break new ground 
all the time. It is in exact accordance with the aggress- 
ive genius of the people. Paul's circuit — from Jerusalem 
round about to Illyricum — was perhaps more than one thou- 
sand miles in length ; but whether they were in direct line 
or not, he fully preached Christ in cities and in country. 
His theme was "Christ crucified." Before the preaching 
of the cross, superstition, idolatry, and systems of false re- 
ligion, venerable in years and powerful in patronage, fled 
like morning mists before the orb of day. He says that 
this style of preaching brought forth fruit in every place ; 
that God always caused him to triumph through Christ. 
This was the effect of preaching Christ then, and has been 
ever since. Preaching must be done upon the simple basis 
of faith— faith in the word, faith because it is the word of 



Paul's commission to preach. 135 

the Lord that endureth forever. Our faith must not be 
in the logical arguments used, not in the captivating style, 
not in excellency of speech or of wisdom, but in the great 
doctrines of the cross. And if we catch the proper inspi- 
ration of this doctrine, like Paul, we will restlessly strive 
to make Christ known to such as had not heard of his 
name in this relation before. Whatever we may or may 
not do in this aggressive line, if the spirit of preaching 
the gospel to every creature is properly upon us, we will 
show our divine calling by our labor in the lanes of pov- 
erty and in the destitute districts of the country. A preach- 
er who can content himself through life to sit down in some 
good pasture and write off and gracefully read off a ser- 
mon or two every Sunday, and feel no call to preach to 
the destitute that lie all around him, is surely not a min- 
ister of Jesus Christ. No such pastors and preachers are 
reported to us in the New Testament. Look and see. The 
extent to which a minister preaches the gospel, he being 
able to choose his course, has much to do with the evidence 
of a divine call to the ministry. A man may have a 
local charge, but no man can do his duty by giving him- 
self to one congregation while there are large numbers of 
neglected souls in easy reach of him. But we will here 
close this humble sermon. We have glanced at one or two 
things which lie without the beaten pathway of our pred- 
ecessors in exposition. Our great desire is to wake up in 
all our preachers a jealous, just concern to guard against 
all the chances of making the cross of none effect by wis- 
dom of words. 

Let Paul's account of a gospel ministry be our motto: 
" But if all prophesy, and there come in one that believ- 
eth not, or one unlearned, he is convinced of all, he is 
judged of all; and thus are the secrets of his heart made 
manifest; and so falling down on his face, he will worship 



136 BISHOP PIERCE'S SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

God, and report that God is in you of a truth." If any 
one ever saw the like of this under a sermon read, no 
matter what its excellency of speech, he has seen what I 
have not. Let us prophesy — that is, declare the testimo- 
nies of God. 



Tfe lord of god a Nation's Life. 



"That he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread 
only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the 
Lord doth man live." (Deut. viii. 3.) 

"r I iHE things which were written aforetime were writ- 
ten for our learning, that we through patience and 
JL comfort of the Scriptures might have hope." The 
narratives of the Old Testament are not to be regarded as 
simple paragraphs in general history, mere links connecting 
in consecutive order the events of the olden time, but as 
embodying great principles in human society and in divine 
administration, vital alike to the well-being of the one and 
the uniformity of the other. God is always the same ; and 
the Bible, while it records the actions of men, is really the 
history of God, and as " with him there is neither variable- 
ness nor shadow of turning," we learn from his past pro- 
cedure what we may expect as to his present and future 
government. This fact being fully apprehended, we have 
a key to the dispensations of Providence, and need not great- 
ly err in interpreting current events or in speculations as to 
the future. While in the Mosaic economy there were many 
statutes, local and temporary, having their origin and use 
in what was peculiar to an introductory dispensation, yet 
among them are laws of universal and permanent obliga- 
tion, principles ordained of God for all time, and perpetu- 
ated for the instruction of mankind in the lasting records 
of the Church. 

* Preached before the Bible Convention of the Confederate States, 
Augusta, Ga., March 19, 1862.— Editor. 

(137) 



138 bishop pierce's sermons axd addresses. 

Government is an institution of heaven ; the powers that 
be are ordained of God. It is true the Scriptures do not 
designate any particular form of government as best, nor 
are they eclectic as between the various theories which have 
challenged the suffrage of mankind ; but as the condition 
precedent to the Divine blessing, the duties of rulers and 
subjects are distinctly denned, and conformity to them urged 
by all that is precious in a nation's hopes, and by all that 
is fearful in the just judgment of Almighty God. It is true 
that mauy features of the Jewish polity were rudimental, 
introductory, and intended to teach the great lessons of de- 
pendence and obedience, as well as to meet for the time be- 
ing the local necessities of tribes and families. Patriarchal 
supremacy, the subordinate authority of the chiefs of clans, 
and, under them, the heads of houses, were all necessary to 
local government, but were wholly inadequate for general 
purposes. Similarity of institutions was too feeble a bond 
of unity, and the elements of discord and disiutegration 
were too strong to be neutralized by the perpetually dilut- 
ing memories of a common descent and the traditional 
marvels of Egypt, the wilderness, and the land of Canaan. 
Before their settlement in the land of promise, the children 
of Israel, however distinct as a people, were not a nation in 
the organic sense of that word; and their governmental 
condition was elementary, and the forms of authority were 
simple, yet sufficient for order and prompt action. While 
the law did not abrogate these institutions, and the theoc- 
racy to be inaugurated did not supersede them, God was all 
the time educating them to broader views of their destiny, 
and to more exalted conceptions of their spiritual relations, 
and of the high functions they were to perform as a chosen 
people among the nations of the earth. 

The disciplinary process by which the Jews *vere con- 
ducted through their singular history from bondage to na- 



THE WORD OF GOD A NATIONS LIFE 139 

tional independence, power, and prosperity looked to two 
grand objects, one of which has been largely overlooked in 
our perusal of the historic records of the Old Testament. 
One purpose, and the primary one, was to train up a people 
to a nationality, favorable in the plans of Providence for 
the introduction of Messiah's kingdom ; the other and the 
collateral one — secondary in order, yet vastly important to 
mankind — was that, taking the Jew as the type of his race, 
God might develop the sources of weakness and danger, the 
probable points of departure from the true and the right 
way, the temptations most likely to corrupt and deteriorate, 
the elements of decay, overthrow, and extinction. The 
Jews, with all their folly, ingratitude, and perverseness, 
were fair specimens of human nature; and an impartial 
record of individual experience or national history would 
show pride, unbelief, and forgetfulness of God in forms as 
revolting and under circumstances as provoking as any fur- 
nished by Ephraim or Judah. 

Moses, in the address of which the text is a part, exhorts 
the children of Israel to obey all the commandments of the 
Lord their God ; reminds them of the way along which 
they had been led, of the afflictions which they had endured, 
and the deliverances wrought for them; interprets for them 
the programme of Divine Providence, and declares the ul- 
terior object to have been that they might know that "man 
doth not live by bread only, but by every word that pro- 
ceeded out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live." 

The lowest construction which these words will bear — 
and doubtless the doctrine is true — is that man's animal- 
physical life is not sustained by bread alone, but by any 
thing that God may appoint and sanctify for nutriment ; 
that his blessing first gave the earth its fertility and contin- 
ues it, and if he were to command the air to sustain us, it 
would be equally obedient. 



110 BISHOP PIERCE'S SERMONS AXD ADDRESSES. 

But the text has a higher meaning. It teaches that not 
only our being, but our well-being depends upon conformity 
to the divine word ; that life, in its lowest gradation as pred- 
icate of man, is not sustained by the natural law of adaptation 
of means to ends, and can neither be developed, prolonged, nor 
made happy outside of the will and word of the Lord ; that 
bread, though ordained as the staff of life, does not nourish by 
virtue of its chemical properties, but by the blessing of the 
Lord; that the transgression of the divine law by intem- 
perance, excess in the use of what God supplies or allows, 
poisons, destroys, entails disease and death ; that life is to be 
regarded not as a physiological fact, but a moral endow- 
ment, deriving its dignity and value from its religious use, 
the moral appropriation of its powers, its spiritual relations, 
and its possible eternal sequences. The words " man liveth," 
though a simple form of speech, are nevertheless compound 
in their signification. "Man" is a generic term, and stands 
for the race; "liveth" is concrete, and includes man as an 
individual being, as a member of the community, as a citi- 
zen of the country; and the whole comprehension of the 
phrase is that man considered as an independent personal- 
ity, that human society in its aggregate, the Church as 
an ecclesiastical organization, the State as a body politic, 
are all under the same general law of dependence, subjec- 
tion, and obedience, as the condition of life, honor, pros- 
perity, and perpetuity. 

We have assembled under very peculiar circumstances. 
As a people we are in the midst of revolution. Our seces- 
sion from the old Federal Union and the inauguration of a 
new Confederacy have not only dissolved the political ties 
which connected us with the Northern States, but have 
broken up our religious societies, our benevolent institutions, 
and thrown us upon new organizations to meet our respon- 
sibilities as a Christian people to the world around us. It 



THE WORD OF GOD A NATION 9 S LIFE. Ml 

has seemed to me appropriate, therefore, to waive in the dis- 
cussion of the subject chosen the special views and individ- 
ual applications which the words would justify and even 
demand under ordinary circumstances, and to content my- 
self in a brief discourse upon a few leading ideas as they 
apply to society and the State. 

The chapter opens Avith the implied doctrine that the test 
of true allegiance to God and the security of a quiet and 
peaceable life in all godliness and honesty is in universal 
obedience to the Divine Commandments. 

This is a broad, perhaps a startling, proposition; but it 
is the starting-point of all sound and safe reasoning on the 
question of duty, either personal, social, or political. Obe- 
dience, to be sincere, must be entire. Neither God's author- 
ity nor man's real interests will allow of any limitation. 
All religion consists in recognizing the law and glory of 
our Maker, submitting to duty because it is his will, and 
not because it is a decision of our reason. The authority 
of the divine statute must be most solemnly regarded ; oth- 
erwise, outward conformity is no proof of inward loyalty. 
To prevent delusion, this thought must be borne in mind, 
or the sacrifices we make to our own pride and selfishness 
may assume the name and claim the reward of religious 
service. While the will of God is absolute and binding, 
even when the reasons of its enactments do not appear, still, 
to manifest the nature and perfection of his government, he 
has been pleased to declare the benefit of his laws, and these 
appeal so strongly to our instincts and our solicitations of 
interests as to constrain our admiration and homage, and, 
under powerful impressions of reverence and fear, we some- 
times resolve upon and pledge fidelity and service. But 
God, who knows the latent propensity of evil in our nature, 
may often address us as he did the children of Israel when 
they vowed to do all that he had commanded : " The peo- 



1-12 BISHOP PIERCE'S SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

pie have well said all they have spoken ; that there were 
such a heart in them, that they would fear me and keep all 
my commandments always, that it might be well with them 
and their children forever ! " To prove them, to know what 
was in their hearts, whether they would keep his command- 
ments or no, he humbled them, suffered them to hunger 
and thirst, led them through a variety of difficult circum- 
stances, favored them with many miraculous deliverances. 
They were thwarted and they were indulged, disappointed 
in their expectations and surprised by their mercies, pun- 
ished for their sins that they might be admouished, and par- 
doned that they might be encouraged. But they were slow 
to learn the lessons of Providence. Distrust, murmuring, 
ingratitude, disobedience, marked all their history. Fail- 
ing in the fundamental principle of submission and refer- 
ence to God, they sought out many inventions. To say 
nothing now of the evil leaven of pride, self-will, the imi- 
tation of the multitude to do evil, which permeated their 
domestic life and social manners, very soon forgetting all 
the precautionary counsels by Moses, all the wonders of 
their own marvelous annals and their peculiar covenant 
relations, the practical recognition of their invisible king 
became an abstraction, a tradition without authority and 
a fable without a moral. They sought to live by bread 
alone, to prosper without virtue, to fight without divine 
warrant, and to conquer without celestial aid. The word 
of the Lord was buried amid the rubbish of their des- 
ecrated temple. The altars, the high places, every green 
tree, the enthroned abominations of the heathen, revealed 
a nation of backsliders and adolaters, and finally of cap- 
tives and exiles. 

To consei-ve a nation, that word of the Lord so often 
announced in the Bible, " The Lord reigneth" must be rec- 
ognized, acknowledged, practically believed. Incorporated 



THE WORD OF GOD A NATION- 8 LIFE. 14:3 

in the constitution, confessed by their chief magistrate, re- 
echoed by subordinate rulers, pervading the legislation of 
the country, presiding over public opinion, it will be a safe- 
guard in revolution, a guide in peace, a Pharos beaming 
light and hope upon the future. Political morality would 
never have been deemed a thing of no concern, an article 
of barter, bandied about the market-places of the land, if 
men had not first imagined that the Most High did not re- 
gard the actions of men and administer justice among the 
nations. A perverted public sentiment, largely tinctured 
with atheism, which excludes God from the affairs of earth, 
and confines him — if it admit his existence at all — to heaven 
and heavenly things, is a fruitful source of venality and 
corruption in high places and low places, of insubordina- 
tion, of commercial fraud and infidelity to contracts, of 
impious legislation and wide-spread contamination. Our 
republican fathers wisely separated the Church from the 
otate ; their degenerate successors madly separated the State 
from heaven. It has been the fashion to theorize and de- 
cide on politics as if Christianity were not a superior, su- 
preme law, and as though God had abandoned his book 
and his rights to the chances of a doubtful contest. States- 
manship has become an earthly science, a philosophy with- 
out religion, and a system of expediency without a con- 
science. In discussing systems of finance, commerce, tar- 
iffs, international relations, who insists on moral causes, on 
the dependence of the nations on Him who turns the sea- 
sons round, dispenses the changes and destinies of govern- 
ments, and cannot and will not be forgotten, without rebuke 
and judgment? 

Loose and licentious notions of liberty are the legitimate 
outgrowth of ignoring the supremacy of God. Vicious 
maxims in trade become current ; capital is invested in en- 
terprises which war against morality; vice puts on the liv- 



144 bishop pierce's sermons and addresses. 

ery of fashion, and becomes bold by patronage ; the admin- 
istration of justice grows lax, in morbid sympathy with a- 
false philanthropy; unpunished crime gangrenes society; 
and deified wealth rides oyer principle and merit and talent ; 
and a hollow, heartless selfishness holds carnival over the 
wreck of every virtue. 

The voice of the multitude, the example of the great, the 
power of money, constitute an inquisition so virulent and 
overbearing that reproof is dumb, the testimony of the Church 
is paralyzed, and if from the wilderness which popular sin 
has made there comes out some fearless prophet of heaven, 
threatening the wrath to come, society, demoralized by in- 
dulgence and blinded by long impunity, rains upon his 
honest head the epithets, " bigot," " enthusiast," " fanatic," 
" hypocrite," and rushes on unchecked to its doom. Men 
may philosophize, speculate, declaim, but God will reign. 
He never abdicates or dies. His glory he w T ill not give 
to another. We are not our own, but men under au- 
thority. In morals we have no rights of legislation. We 
have a Master in heaven. His title to reverence is indis- 
putable; his claim to homage and obedience is inalienable. 
We must render to God the things which are God's. If 
we would be a Christian nation, what the law commands or 
allows must never contravene the behests of Heaven. Na- 
tions have a sort of collective unity, and between rulers 
and people there is a reciprocal responsibility; and if there 
be connivance in evil, each is amenable for the guilt of the 
other. If the executive or legislative or judicial depart- 
ment bring the law or policy of the country into conflict 
with the revealed economy of God, the people should re- 
monstrate, vindicate the divine right, exhaust the remedies 
in their power, and, if they cannot reform, at least fix the 
burden where it belongs. If the people grow corrupt, im- 
pious, and claim the natural ricrht to do moral wrong, then 



THE WORD OF GOD A NATIONS LIFE. 145 

the government must set itself to honor God, by becoming 
a terror to them that do evii. Rulers must not bear the 
sword in vain if they would fear God and live by his word. 
The Church too must cease to shrink before the cant of 
those godless demagogues who, when the good seek to array 
public opinion against vice, and to bring law into harmony 
with the Bible, preach liberty of conscience, all the more 
vociferously because they have long since ceased to have 
any conscience or rule of life save selfish indulgence. Her 
testimony against evil must be clear, intrepid, meek but 
firm, patient but unwearied. The insane cry of popery 
and priestcraft must no longer smother the thunders of the 
pulpit; and the theory of a Christianity which converts 
people without a change of heart or life, liberal enough to 
let men do as they please for the sake of their name and 
their money, which grants indulgences for sin rather than 
be thought uncharitable, relaxes by an apocryphal canon 
the stringent, inexorable rules of purity and self-denial, 
must be met, routed, exiled ; and the sacramental host must 
know that if they would drink of the river whose streams 
make glad the city of God, then must they fulfill the com- 
mission of his lips. The impregnation of government, law, 
art, commerce, civilization, with her own pure, gentle, peace- 
able, loving sentiments, is the predicted triumph of Chris- 
tianity; and we approximate the glory of that millennial 
age when we honor the divine word by believing its prom- 
ises, fearing its threatenings, adopting its counsels, practicing 
its morals; w T hen w r e magnify the Lord and exalt his name; 
when we recognize his providence, beseech his aid, depre- 
cate his w r rath, by confession, petition, and reformation. I 
am glad that our young republic acknowledges God in her 
constitution, and calls on him to witness the rectitude of her 
aims and objects. I am glad that our President in several 
official acts, "seeing that we have no might against the 
10 



14^J BISHOP PIEPCE'S SEPMOXS AXB ADDPESSES. 

great multitude coming upon us," has sought to turn the 
-eyes of the people to the Lord their God ; and that in his 
late inaugural he concludes with an earnest appeal to God 
and a thrilling declaration of his own abiding trust in the 
justice and mere) 7 of the Lord Almighty. I am glad that 
the people have responded again and again to the call to 
fast and pray with unwonted earnestness and universality. 
Amid much that is discouraging to the pious, in view of 
abounding iniquity, these national acts, interpreted by 
scriptural examples, inspire hope that God will vouchsafe 
to the intercessions of the faithful few our deliverance and 
liberty. O my countrymen! let us reverence the Lord of 
Sabaoth; and let us remember that our country is to be 
preserved and perpetuated, not by science, wealth, patriot- 
ism, population, armies or navies, but by every word that 
proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord. " Hear me, Asa 
and all Judah and Benjamin: the Lord is with you while 
ye be with him; and if ye seek him, he will be found of 
you ; but if ye forsake him, he will forsake you." 

Another word of the Lord by which society is to be im- 
proved and the nation exalted to healthy, happy life is his 
statute on the religious training of the young. On this 
subject for a series of years the policy of the country has 
been wrong and growing worse, the testimony of the Church 
has been timid, wavering, and inconsistent. In relation to it 
the commandment of the Lord is explicit. The admoni- 
tions and counsels of the Bible are frequent, earnest, and 
pointed ; but a proud and petulant philosophy, full of con- 
ceit and flippant maxims, has corrupted both opinion and 
practice, and circulated ideas full of deadly poison, blight- 
ing to character and fatal to all government. The primal 
cause of well-nigh all the evils which afflict society is to be 
found in defective family discipline, example, and instruc- 
tion, and in a nearlv total disregard of the injunctions of 



THE WORD OF GOD A NATION'S LIFE. 147 

the Bible, the word of the Lord upon this subject. To train 
up a child in the nurture and admonition of the Lord is a 
lofty commission, a moral duty of the highest grade, next 
in responsibility to our personal salvation. To fulfill it in 
perfection requires the highest order of intellect and the 
deepest work of grace. According to the capacity given, 
or that might be acquired, every parent is bound by the 
most solemn considerations, both personal and relative, tem- 
poral and eternal, to do what he can in developiug the im- 
mortal mind committed to his charge into the highest style 
of character. Admitting the intrinsic difficulties of the 
task, I cannot forbear remarking that the embarrassments 
most complained of chiefly arise from substituting the di- 
vine by human plans ; the sternness of authority, arbitrary, 
imperious, and passionate ; turbulent temper, venting them- 
selves in petulance and scolding ; an indiscriminate use of 
the rod, or the bribery of weak compliances or irredeem- 
able and unredeemed promises, or the postponement of. all 
effort till the day of salvation is gone ; and all these in the 
face of God's word, which says: "Fathers, provoke not 
your children to wrath," "forbear threatening," "put away 
lying," " be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry," " he that 
loveth his son chasteneth him betimes." The Bible not 
only gives specific instruction in all these things, but is it- 
self the best instrument of discipline. Its doctrines are to 
be taught, its principles explained, its motives urged, its 
promises applied, its threatenings announced. "And thou 
shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt 
talk of them when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou 
walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when 
thou risest up." For, says the psalmist, God "established 
a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which 
he commanded our fathers that they should make them 
known to their children; that the generation to come might 



US bishop pierce's sermons and addresses. 

know them, even the children which should be born ; who 
should arise and declare them to their children ; that they 
might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of 
God, but keep his commandments." How wise, how be- 
nignant, how conservative this statute! A father dies with- 
out a will, the division of his estate is settled by the arbitra- 
ment of law ; but if he failed to communicate the knowledge 
of God, who shall supply his omission or make up to the 
wronged or defrauded child his lost heritage ? How natural 
and beautiful the divine plan for transmitting truth ! Every 
parent a historian and preacher, every habitation a temple, 
every path a school-house, every bed a pious retreat, where age 
sinks to rest with the language of piety on its lips, and youth is 
hushed to repose by the music of love in the words of heaven. 
O if the people would live by every word that proceedeth 
from the mouth of God, what families, how happy! what 
children, how lovely! vhat Churches, how pure! what a 
nation, how great and wise and strong, having God so nigh 
in all that we call upon him for ! 

What a departure from the word of the Lord must that 
be which has accredited people with religion — Bible relig- 
ion — and yet allowed them to live in the neglect of a pri- 
mary duty integral to personal piety, essential to Church 
progress, fundamental to public order and national great- 
ness! Verily, the bread which we have been using may 
continue breath and being, but it is scanty, husky fare, and 
will fill the land with moral skeletons, tattered, hungry 
prodigals, too feeble to stand in virtue's ways, and too far 
off to return to our Father's house. If we would have our 
sons as plants grown up in their youth, our daughters as 
corner-stones polished after the similitude of a palace; if 
we would enjoy the fatness, the sweetness, the wine of life, 
we must live by every word of God. We must come back 
to the law and to the testimonv, and renouncing and de- 



THE WORD OF GOD A NATIONS LIFE. 149 

nouncing all the pert infidel sayings of the times, all the 
cant of irresolution, the pleas of sloth, the pretenses of 
mock humility, set ourselves to realize that prophetic scene, 
bright with celestial promise — "And all thy children shall 
be taught of the Lord, and great shall be the peace of thy 
children." 

It is due to the subject and appropriate to the occasion 
to say that the whole education of the country should be 
Christian. During the formative period of life it is obvi- 
ously the will of God and to the interest of society that the 
rising generation should be taught the knowledge of God, 
the mind developed in the light of the Bible, and the heart 
guarded from the contagion of bad example, and trained 
under a system decidedly evangelical. Science and relig- 
ion should be united in indissoluble wedlock. The sancti- 
ties of the parental roof and the memories of pious instruc- 
tion should be perpetuated in the school-house, the acad- 
emy, the college. The interests at stake are too precious to 
be jeoparded by any omissions or lapses or intervals of 
neglect. The infidel policy of leaving the youthful mind 
unbiased and free is unsound in principle and impracticable 
in fact. It is a stratagem of the enemy of souls, too shal- 
low to deceive a thinking man, and ought to inspire the 
good to an instant occupancy of the ground, and a tena- 
cious holding of it, by all the arts of love and mercy, the 
most assiduous, painstaking care, and the most devout sup- 
plications to God for needed help. The Christian denomi- 
nations of the land have been seeking to do somewhat in 
this direction; but they have largely modified their plans 
to forestall the charge of sectarianism and escape the ap- 
prehended edge of reproach from their enemies. What ! is 
it sectarian to teach a youth to fear God, to do right, to 
love the country? sectarian to urge patriotism, benevolence, 
personal purity, by the sanctions of revealed religion ? My 



150 BISHOP PIERCE 's SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

brethren, if we would live by the word of the Lord, we 
must no longer compromise our duty to God and the coun- 
try by diluting our systems of education to suit carnal taste 
and worldly wisdom. We must prepare for the future. 
The conflict for dominion between light and darkness is 
progressing; the crisis is at hand. We must come up to 
the help of the Lord against the mighty. The young should 
be enlisted as conscripts of the kingdom. Catechisms, Sun- 
day-schools, family religion, . pastoral care, religious educa- 
tion, should all be levied upon, pressed into service, if we 
Nvould save the landmarks of morality from the inundations 
of vice and draw over the nation the shield of Omnipotence. 
Put the Bible in every house, an evangelical teacher in 
every school, a man of God in every pulpit ; stir up, vital- 
ize, intensify every agency for good in the Church ; multi- 
ply by faith and prayer revivals of religion ; seek, O seek 
the instruction and conversion of the young ; and then, when 
this terrible war is ended, and peace reigns in all our bor- 
ders, we shall have a state of society so bright, beautiful, 
and blessed that time shall have no emblem of it in the 
past but Eden, and eternity no type in the future but 
heaven. 

This history of the past, as well as the suggestions of the 
text, constrain me to add one more illustration of the general 
truth I have been expounding. The life of a nation, in the 
sense of stability, honor, credit, prosperity, depends largely 
upon the moral character of its rulers. Nor are these re- 
sults regulated by merely natural causes. History, sacred 
and profane, attests that God's blessing is upon the good, 
and his curse sooner or later upon the bad. In the polit- 
ical creed of this country a man's morals, his relations to 
God, have scarcely been thought of in his elevation to office. 
Party, party service, order in rotation, have often deter- 
mined the candidate, and, albeit he was the victim of 



THE WORD OF GOD A NATIONS LIFE. 151 

notorious vices, the wire-worker reckoned advisedly upon 
rallying the strength of the party to his support through 
his affinity with the vile on the one hand and the unscrupu- 
lous devotion of all the rest to the platform on the other. 
We are the victims to-day of this ungodly traffic in vice, 
of unscriptural theories of government, of selfish schemes 
of power, of the fanatical ambition to enthrone an idea 
born in the seething brain of a pseudo-philanthropy, which 
boldly avows that the Bible is a lie if it does not teach its 
creed, and God to be rejected if he does not indorse it. 

The word of the Lord is : " Provide out of all the people 
able men that fear God ; " " The wicked walk on every side, 
when the vilest men are exalted;" "When the wicked 
beareth rule, the people mourn." On the other side, a rul- 
er " is a minister of God for good," " a terror to evil-doers, and 
a praise to them that do well." " Righteousness exalteth a 
nation, but sin is a reproach to any people" — especially when 
sin is exalted, honored, enthroned in the high places of the 
land. In the divine administration rulers are contem- 
plated as the head and representatives of the people, even 
in hereditary governments; and it must be eminently so in 
an elective one. It is to be remembered, therefore, that the 
people must share in the judgments which the sins of rul- 
ers provoke. When these proud transgressors challenge 
the Divine Being by their reckless impiety, the retribution 
is often sudden and overwhelming, as when he smote Herod 
with worms; or a gradual blight, a living death, as in the 
days of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin. 
One mode of divine punishment — and perhaps the most to 
be dreaded — is to. abandon a people to corruption, leave 
the disease to work its course without check, permit them 
to fill up the cup of their iniquity, and, when sin puts on 
the glare of renown and the robes of office, and dances in 
festal gayety under the patronage of the great; when the 



152 bishop pierce's sermons axd addresses. 

flood-gates are open, the impediments are gone, and pollu- 
tion rolls like a flood, then the clouds of wrath brew in the 
heavens above, and the Dead Sea makes ready her grave 
beneath. Another mode is to make the people mourn their 
folly through the passions of their rulers, and then come 
Avars, taxes, oppressions, waste of blood and treasure; or 
the clouds of heaven are sealed and the parched earth re- 
sponds not to the tiller's toil ; mildew blights the ungathered 
harvest, pestilence wastes population, or the red rain of 
battle drenches the land with sorrow, and captivity is the 
doom of the nation. We are beginning a new career. 
God help us to avoid the errors of the past, and, throwing 
off the shackles of parties, conventions, and platforms, to 
abide by the word of the Lord. Let us have a Christian 
nation in fact as well as in name, that God may be as a 
wall of fire round about this young Confederacy, and a 
glory in the midst of her. 

There is one other departure from the word of the Lord 
common to the policy of the country, adopted and pursued 
by well-nigh all, which demands and deserves rebuke. I 
mean the greed of gain, the deification of money. The 
subject is too large for discussion now, but a word to the 
wise will not be amiss. 

In this very chapter Moses admonished the people against 
the self-same evil into which we have sadly run, and noti- 
fies them that the only security against the temptations of 
an all-surrounding abundance was to remember, fear, and 
obey God. " Beware, lest when thou hast eaten and art 
full, and hast built goodly houses and dwelt therein ; and 
when thy herds and thy flocks multiply, and thy silver and 
gold is multiplied, and all that thou hast is multiplied ; then 
thine heart be lifted up, and thou forget the Lord thy 
God." Alas! this is the crime and the curse of America. 
We have prospered, grown rich, luxurious, proud, and have 



THE WORD OF GOD A NATION'S LIFE. 153 

said in our hearts, " My power and the might of my hand 
hath gotten me this wealth." 

The history of the world confirms the testimony of the 
Bible as to the moral dangers of accumulated treasure. 
"Wealth is favorable to every species of wickedness. Lux- 
ury, licentiousness of manners, selfishness, indifference to 
the distresses of others, presumptuous confidence in our own 
resources — these are the accompaniments of affluence when- 
ever the safeguards of the divine word, both as to the 
mode of increase and the proper use, are disregarded. As 
to the higher forms of character and civilization, unless 
regulated and sanctified by Scripture truth and principle, 
opulence has always been one of the most active causes of 
individual degeneracy and of national corruption. Under 
the influence of its subtle poison, moral principle decays; 
patriotism puts off its nobility and works for hire; bribery 
corrupts the judgment-seat, and justice is blinded by gifts; 
benevolence suppresses its generous impulses, and counts its 
contributions by fractions ; religion, forgetting the example 
of its Author and the charity of its mission, pleads penury, 
and chafes at every opportunity for work or distribution ; 
covetousness devours widows' houses and grows sleek on 
the bread of orphans; usury speculates on providence and 
claims its premium alike from suffering poverty and selfish 
extravagance; extortion riots upon the surplus of the rich 
and the scrapings of the poor, enlarges its demand as neces- 
sity increases, and, amid impoverishment, want, and public 
distress, whets its appetite for keener rapine, and with un- 
dated desire laps the last drop from its victim, and remorse- 
lessly sighs for more. The world counts gain as godli- 
ness, prosperity as virtue, fraud as talent, and money, money, 
money is the god of the land, with every house for a tem- 
ple, every field for an altar, and every man for a worshiper. 
The Church, infected by popular example, adopts the max- 



154 bishop pierce's sermons axd addresses. 

ims of men, grades the wages of her servants by the mini- 
mum standard, pays slowly and gives grudgingly, and 
stands guard over her treasures as if Providence were a 
robber and they who press the claims of Heaven came to 
, cheat and to steal. 

Whenever the conservative laws of accumulation and 
distribution as presented in the Bible are ignored, then not 
only doe? the love of money stimulate our native depravity, 
but the hoarded gain furnishes facilities for uncommon wick- 
edness. The attendant evils are uniform. They have never 
failed in the history of the past. "When commerce, manu- 
factures, and agriculture pour in their treasures, then, with- 
out the counteracting power of Scripture truth and gospel 
grace, they infallibly breed the sins which have been, under 
God, the executioners of nations. Such is the suicidal 
tendency of unsanctified wealth that the greater the pros- 
perity of the people the shorter the duration. The virulence 
of the maladies superinduced destroy suddenly, and that 
without remedy. Now, mark how apposite, how prophetic, 
how descriptive the word of the Lord: "They that will be 
rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many fool- 
ish and hurtful lusts ; " " He that maketh haste to be rich 
shall not be innocent;" "He that hasteth to be rich hath 
an evil eye." How these passages rebuke the spirit of spec- 
ulation, the greedy desires, the equivocal expedients, the 
high-pressure schemes of the people! "Lay not up for 
yourselves treasures upon earth." " Charge them that are 
rich in this world, that they be not high-minded nor trust 
in uncertain riches." O ye who make and save, and hide 
and hoard, hear ye the word of the Lord: "Your riches are 
corrupted, and your garments are motheaten. Your gold 
and silver is cankered, and the rust of them shall be a 
witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were 
fire." ye who strut and shine in plumage plucked from 



THE WORD OF GOD A NATION'S LIFE. 155 

thepoor and needy, "ye have received your consolation;" 
" weep and howl for the miseries that shall come upon you." 

One of the moral secrets of this wretched war, as we call 
it — perhaps it may turn out to be merciful — in my judg- 
ment, is to arrest the corruption of prosperity ; to unsettle, 
agitate, break loose the people from their plans and hopes ; 
dethrone their cotton idol, and, by upheaving the incrusta- 
tions imposed by long years of peace and security, to let 
into our darkened minds the light of truth and ventilate 
the dormant conscience. Infatuated by the love of the 
world, sensualized, fast-rooted in our j)ride and forgetful- 
ness of God, the Spirit of grace has been shut out, the 
hearts of men were impervious through the power of dom- 
inant, overmastering habit, and the preaching of the gospel 
as fruitless as would have been the tinkling of a cymbal. 
The Church has been sliding into the world; the broad 
scriptural lines of demarkation were well-nigh passed. Pi- 
ety had grown thin, meager, unreal. Christian manhood 
was merged in a mawkish spirit of compliance — a supple, 
sickly liberality ready to break down the last barrier to 
the encroachments of fashion and the demands of an un- 
godly age. We needed reform. The shocks and vibrations 
of war's terrible batteries were necessary to shake the drowsy, 
stagnant atmosphere, to change the currents of thought, to 
break down the dominion of old ideas, and set us free from 
the selfish policy of the past. To this end God has "stirred 
up our nest," pushed us out from our resting-places, un- 
hinged the whole machinery of life, and called us to priva- 
tion, sacrifice, and peril. O that this bitter discipline, this 
fiery ordeal, may prepare us for a liberty better regulated 
and a religion more spiritual, active, and useful! 

Hear now "the conclusion of the whole matter." The 
sum of this teaching is that man liveth not by bread only, 
not by natural means, not by human philosophy, not by 



1C6 BISHOP PIERCE' S SERMONS AXD ADDRESSES. 

expediency, by time-serving — the shifting policy of earth — 
but that if we would be good, prosperous, useful, happy, 
safe, we must live by every word of God. My brethren, 
we are not mere life-time creatures, born to graze over the 
world like beasts of the field, or to flit about in gayety and 
song like the birds of the air, but subjects of discipline, 
spirits on probation, where great deeds are to be done, he- 
roic sacrifices to be made, the distresses of others to be re- 
lieved, and our generation to be served by the will of God. 
The earth we inhabit is not a mere physical frame-work, 
but a theater of religion, of devotion to Christ and service 
to man. Breath, digestion, growth, sumptuous fare, titles, 
names, rank, power — these are not life, but semblances, 
mockeries, all. No, no ; life is a boon of grace, the gift of 
God, capable of high achievement and noble destiny. To 
save our souls and to serve our race — this is our task ; and 
to fulfill it is " life and health and peace." Love to God 
and man is our highest dignity, the divinest charity, the 
surest preparation for duty and death. While the wise and 
rich and mighty glory in their possessions, let us give all 
for " the pearl of great price." While the wavering minds 
of an unbelieving world toss restlessly upon a sea of doubt, 
let us hold fast by the oracles of God, the sure word of 
prophecy and promise. Precious Bible ! Here is treasure 
which never waxes old. Here is knowledge without decay, 
truth which endureth forever. From it comes all pure 
morality ; out of it proceeds all the sweet charities of life ; 
in it is the motive-power that is now reforming, and by and 
by will achieve the reformation of our race. The old man 
leaning upon his staff and tottering to the tomb reads it, 
and thanks God he was born to die. The gray-haired ma- 
tron soothes her sorrows by its record of love, and the light 
of her hope, kindled by its inspiration, projects beyond the 
desolations of death. Childhood and youth pillow their 



THE WORD OF GOD A NATION'S LIFE. 157 

heads upon its truth in nature's last struggle, and die with 
their fingers between its promise-freighted leaves. In the 
house of mourning its footstep is noiseless as an angel's wing, 
and its power to cheer more potent than an angel's tongue. 
At the grave of the buried it chants the hymn of hope, 
preaches the patience of faith to mourning friendship and 
stricken love, exhales and crystallizes the tears of sorrow, 
and gems the crown of life with these transfigured me- 
mentos of earthly suffering. 

To devise a plan for giving this Book of books to the 
world is the object of our meeting. Under present circum- 
stances we can do but little. Our country is in trouble. 
War is upon us. We can, however, consult and pray, re- 
new our expression of faith and love, strengthen the bonds 
of unity, and make ready for the future. It is a time for 
preparation. Let us provide a treasury for the gifts of the 
Lord's people, organize for effective action when peace shall 
come, give the Hew Testament at least to our soldiers, and 
show to the Churches and the world that we covet the 
eulogy pronounced by our Lord upon Mary when he said, 
"She hath done what she could." Let us declare our will 
and purpose to cooperate with the other associations of 
Christendom in the work of printing, publishing, and cir- 
culating the sacred Scriptures without note or comment; 
and may God speed the holy work and hasten the day when 
the Bible shall be the creed of every people, the text-book 
of every statesman, the constitution of every nation, the joy 
and excellence of all the earth ! 



Make M Proof of Thy Ministry. 9 



" I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesns Christ, 
who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his 
kingdom ; preach the word ; be instant in season, out of season ; re- 
prove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine. For the 
time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after 
their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itch- 
ing ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and 
shall be turned unto fables. But watch thou in all things, endure 
afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy min- 
istry." (2 Tim. iv. 1-5.) 

IT is needful sometimes to stir up even a pure mind by 
way of remembrance. The solemn charge of the apos- 
tle to a minister so- zealous and faithful as Timothy in- 
dicates his estimate of the importance of the ministerial 
office, of the temptations which assail it, and the fearful 
consequences either of infidelity or negligence. His lan- 
guage implies that the responsibilities of this divine voca- 
tion are always grave, delicate, and difficult, but that they 
are seriously augmented and complicated often by the events 
of history, the state of the Church, the modes of thought, 
the prevailing tastes, the evil tendencies which constitute 
and characterize what we call the "times." 

£. * Preached before the Georgia Conference, in Mulberry Street 
Church, Macon, Georgia, November 19, 1865. FeAv Conference ser- 
mons ever made such an impression as this sermon delivered at the 
first meeting of the preachers after the war. All were acquainted 
with poverty and hardship, and the outlook for all was dark. By 
God's blessing, this sermon did unspeakable good in confirming the 
purposes and rekindling the zeal of the preachers. — Editor. 
(158) 



MAKE FULL PROOF OF THY MINISTRY. 159 

In the text there are two leading ideas. The first is pre- 
ceptive, and sets forth the duty of the ministry, both official 
and personal. The enumeration of particulars is at once 
minute and comprehensive. " Preach the word ; be instant 
in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all 
long-suffering and doctrine." " Watch thou in all things, 
endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full 
proof of thy ministry." 

The second is jirophetic, and proclaims the on-coming of 
a degenerate age — great corruption in the Church, aliena- 
tion from the truth, love of novelty, disgust with faithful 
preaching, and a hunting after teachers more liberal and 
accommodating. "For the time will come when they will 
not endure sound doctrine ; but after their own lusts shall 
they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears ; and 
they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be 
turned unto fables." 

The legitimate inference is that stern, honest, heroic 
preaching is both preventive and conservative. Prevent- 
ive in that, while native depravity, long-cherished idolatries, 
jirescriptive superstitions, an engrossing worldliness, multi- 
plied and multiform errors and delusions, the energies of 
passion, lust, and crime, all embodied against God and 
truth, may limit the usefulness and largely defeat the be- 
nign purpose of the ministry, fidelity to duty, may never- 
theless postpone the evil day, and neutralize the evil agen- 
cies of it when it comes. Conservative because it strength- 
ens the hands and nerves the hearts of the faithful few 
who remain unseduced, un corrupted amid the general 
contagion, and thus maintains and perpetuates a living 
piety in the midst of defection, backsliding, and moral 
death. 

Whether the perilous epoch the apostle describes has passed, 
or is coming, or is now upon us, I shall not undertake to 



160 BISHOP piebce's sermons and addbesses. 

determine. Ecclesiastical history records many declensions 
from doctrinal truth and practical righteousness. These 
dark seasons sometimes lengthened into ages, and again 
these long winters of ice and death were relieved by tongues 
of fire and Pentecostal showers which ushered in the vernal 
seed-time of the summer harvest. I propose to deal not 
with the past, but with the present — our own times, our- 
selves. It is not to be denied that as a denomination we 
have lost ground-— I do not mean comparatively, but abso- 
lutely — in experience and practice; the aggressive policy 
has been arrested, stagnated ; revivals have been few, short- 
lived, superficial; our increase has not kept pace with pop- 
ulation; the tendency to change, disintegration, laxity in 
morals and discipline, has grown into a potent evil, and 
signs of evil omen are shedding a baleful light upon the 
present and the future. The moral causes out of which 
this state of things has grown have been augmented by the 
convulsions of the country and the demoralization of war. 
To retrieve what we have lost and prevent further damage, 
to restore the Church to its pristine efficiency and prepare 
her for future triumphs, there has been much talk of change, 
the readjustment of our machinery, the obliteration of the 
obsolete and the effete, the economic revolution of our sys- 
tem and the better adaptation of its agencies to the existing 
phases of society. All this sounds well— smacks of philos- 
ophy, and carries the charm of plausibility with it. I am 
no enemy to those modifications which experience has shown 
to be necessary, but I desire to utter the sentiment here to- 
day, with all the emphasis which reading, thought, and ob- 
servation can give it, that no legislation will either touch 
the seat or abate the symptoms of the disease that is pray- 
ing upon Methodism. Neither improved architecture, nor 
pews, nor organs, nor lay delegation, nor extension of the 
pastoral term, nor t'-ie abolition of class--meetings and pro- 



MAKE FULL PL'OOF OF THY MINISTRY. 1G1 

bationary membership, nor the multiplication of bishops, 
will achieve the consummation we all devoutly wish. Some 
of these changes would be harmless — nay, positively useful ; 
others very unfortunate ; yet others, as I believe, disastrous 
in the extreme. The facts which alarm and depress the 
pious and intelligent observer show the kind and the malig- 
nity of the disorder, but are themselves the effects of causes 
which are not to be arrested and extirpated by mollifying 
ointments or by a dietetic regime adapted to the caprice of 
an abnormal palate. In truth, the remedy must be applied 
not to the symptoms, but to the disease. Cure the latter, and 
the former will cease of course. The causes which are 
working evil among us are numerous. Some seemingly 
too insignificant for mischief upon a large scale, neverthe- 
less illustrate the maxim that a little leaven leavens the whole 
lump. Others are more potent and imposing, but equally 
subtle and efficacious in their corrupting power. This is 
not the time and place to specify ; it is not needful by way 
of information, nor yet expedient in view of the interest 
of this occasion or the future prospects of our beloved 
Zion. Our business now is with the duties which promise 
to be remedial and reformatory. Profoundly convinced 
and deeply distressed as I confess myself to be with the 
long stagnation which has been upon us, with the irregular, 
fitful, feeble, and unsatisfactory operations of Methodism 
in many respects, I am not a convert to that despairing 
view which declares that Methodism has had its day, lost 
its adaptation to society, grown superannuate, must subside 
into the organization of which it was originally an offshoot, 
or change its platform and remodel its economy, not by the 
ingenious and vigorous invention, the creative faculty of a 
living mind wide awake and equal to the emergency, but 
by readopting the cast-off, the effete, the fossil ideas of the 
formal past, the very slough of a defunct age. Spirit of 
11 



162 bishop pierce's sermons and addresses. 

progress, forbid, in the name of God, this backward revolu- 
tion ! Our business, my brethren, is not to paiut and gar- 
nish the sepulcher of the dead, but in the name and by 
the faith of Jesus to say to the buried Lazarus : " Come forth ; 
take off the grave-clothes ; loose him, and let him go." 

According to my capacity, I am accustomed to take as 
strong views of what is wrong and of /what is wanting 
among us as perhaps any of my brethren, but I do not be- 
lieve that the preachers are all degenerate or the people all 
backslidden. Like Martha, we have been cumbered with 
much serving ; and like Peter, when he paltered with the 
Jews in the house of a Gentile, we have compromised with 
the world, and are to be blamed, but " there is life in the 
old land yet." Our work is not yet done ; the tokens of the 
Divine presence and favor are not all withdrawn ; the shout 
of a king is still heard occasionally in the camp ; the pillar 
of lire still burns in the heavens, and the pilgrim cloud 
which pioneered our fathers on their way to Canaan, though 
long stationary, I believe is about to move. Put on your 
sandals, gird your loins; let every man take his staff in 
hand and wait the signal. And now, brethren, I charge 
you before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge 
the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom, 
prepare, get ready, for the work assigned you. Our salva- 
tion as a people, our usefulness in the world, our future 
glory and power, depend, under God, mainly upon two 

things FAITHFUL GOSPEL PPvEACHIXG and a SCRIPTURAL 

administration of discipline. These two topics branch 
into many particulars. I shall confine myself mainly to 
the first, and shall include the latter only incidentally, if at 
all. The order of the text will be the order of the sermon. 
*" Preach the word." By the word we understand the 
revelation which God has made of himself and of his mind 
and will to mankind respecting their salvation. This rev- 



MAKE FULL PROOF OF THY MINISTRY. 1()H 

elation contains doctrines, precepts, promises, threatenings. 
These are all related; there is an interdependence among 
them, and taken together they make up the "word of faith" 
which we are to preach. We cannot ignore, omit any with- 
out infidelity to our high commission. In the Acts of the 
Apostles we learn that the burden of apostolic ministry was 
Jesus and the resurrection. St. Paul tells the Corinthians 
that he had determined to know nothing among them but 
Christ and him crucified. . But, interpreting these peculiar 
expressions in the light of the New Testament, we are not 
to understand that these early preachers confined them- 
selves, either in their epistles or sermons, to a single topic, 
an isolated fact. They preached Jesus, warning every man, 
teaching every man in all wisdom, that they might present 
every man perfect in Christ Jesus'. The cross of Christ was 
the grand central idea. Around this revolved every thing 
distinctive and peculiar in the Christian scheme. The ques- 
tion comes up, Who was Christ? The word answers: God 
over all, blessed forever; God incarnate — the Word made 
flesh ; the Star which Jacob saw beaming in hallowed projm- 
ecy over the fortunes of Israel; the Shiloh unto whom the 
gathering of the people should -be; the Desire of all na- 
tions ; the Prince of peace ; the only-begotten Son of the 
Father — full of gracious truth ; the Root and Offspring of 
David ; the Morning-star ; the Sun of righteousness ; the 
Saviour born ; the sinner's Friend ; the Advocate ; the Re- 
deemer of the world ; the Resurrection and the Life ; the 
glory of heaven and earth. Why did he suffer and die? 
To make atonement for sin ; to solve the problem wdiich had 
confounded all created intellect — how sin could be remitted 
without infringing the rights and tarnishing the honor of 
the divine government; how the guilty could be rescued 
from wrath without a forfeiture of the divine veracity. The 
humiliation of the Son of God makes manifest the malig- 



164 BISHOP PIERCE'S SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

nity, the atrocity of sin, the Divine abhorrence of all in- 
iquity, and at the same time the exhaustless treasures of 
redeeming mercy. Calvary! mysterious mount, altar on 
which the Eternal Lawgiver offered himself as a ransom, 
compendium of law and gospel, at once the Genesis and 
the Apocalypse of human salvation. 

To preach the Avord we must make a full disclosure of 
the entire depravity and helplessness of human nature. This 
doctrine lies at the very foundation of Christianity. The 
great salvation was made necessary by the corruption of our 
race, the dominion of death, and the sentence of condem- 
nation. This doctrine, I fear, though affirmed, is not taught. 
It is assumed, but not explained, emphasized, urged. Round, 
dogmatic assertion upon this subject will rarely convince; 
more likely to revolt, offend, provoke denial. Self-decep- 
tion is one of the attributes of human depravity, and the 
softening, modifying influences of civilization concur with 
our conceit and complacency to cover up the fact of the 
desperate wickedness of the heart. The preacher must tear 
away the specious veil, dissipate the delusive dream. He 
must bring the probe and the scalpel to the work of dissec- 
tion, and hold on till he has made the startling revelation 
of that hideous sight, a naked human heart. Men must 
see their corruption before they will admit the necessity of 
atonement. They must feel the sentence of condemnation 
in themselves before they will fall as suppliants at Jesus' 
feet. This doctrine is fundamental to gospel repentance. 
The people must believe it. The preachers must declare it, 
prove it, pile scripture on scripture, concentrate the rays 
of light till they burn with focal power upon the sinner's 
heart. Meager, shallow, rationalistic notions will ruin all 
our revivals, dilute the piety of the Church; reduce re- 
pentance to a transient emotion of regret, conversion to 
a name; brand spiritual religion as weakness a;id super- 



MAKE FULL PROOF OF THY MINISTRY. 165 

stition, and leave the strong man armed to keep his goods 
in peace. 

The dependence of all saints and sinners upon the en- 
lightening, renewing influences of the Holy Ghost must be 
distinctly taught, ardently believed, earnestly enforced. 
This doctrine is radical to Christianity. Christianity is 
the dispensation of the Spirit. Its presence and power are 
the promise of the Father. The Spirit alone can unseal the 
book, quicken the letter, give demonstration to truth, per- 
suade the rebellious will, and triumph over Satan and sin. 
The minister of the Lord Jesus should not forget that the 
Spirit never sets his seal to any thing but Bible truth. 
All excitement produced by mere human appeals, by mere- 
tricious pathos, by professional tricks and expletive ma- 
neuvers, is spurious, transient, deceptive; betrays both 
preacher and hearer into a false position, and numbers the 
Church with the unconverted, the unbelieving, and the 
unstable. You may get up a revival by management, by 
sounds, by anecdotes, by appeals to social instincts and 
family affections, by fanciful pictures of reunion of the de- 
parted in heaven, but you cannot bring it down from heaven 
but by the power of faith and prayer and the blessing of 
God upon his own truth faithfully, affectionately preached. 
Revivals to promote the Church must not only partake of 
the Pentecostal type, but they must be identical in origin, 
power, and fruit. The true glory of the Church is not, as 
we vainly imagine, in numbers, wealth, and extension, but 
in holiness, consecration, love of the truth, spiritual expe- 
rience, the faith which overcomes the w T orld, abiding com- 
munion with God. A statistical table is not an infallible 
index. Our glorying is not always good, even when the 
figures show an increase, nor grief wise when they report 
diminution. I have sometimes thought if w r e were to re- 
port conversions instead of numbers — prayer-meetings, with 



1G6 BISHOP PIERCE'S SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

the proportion who attend regularly, instead of revivals in 
which so many joined, and alas! are never counted but 
once — we should get much nearer to a right understanding 
of the true status of the Church. 

"Preach the word" — the word, not philosophy, nor pol- 
itics, nor science, nor human speculations. Do not read 
essays, nor deliver orations, nor substitute critical lectures 
for evangelical sermons. Thank God, I need not expand 
on this point before the Georgia Conference! You,, breth- 
ren, have neither perverted nor prostituted the pulpit to 
any selfish, foreign, unholy purpose. You have been con- 
tent to let the potsherds strive with the potsherds of the 
earth; you have not supplemented the gospel with party 
cant and earthen ideas till no gospel was left. Like Nehe- 
miah, you have refused to come down from the walls of Je- 
rusalem and leave the work God gave you to do, to stand 
still while you wrangled at the base with the enemies of 
Israel in unprofitable debate. But, brethren, might not 
our ministry be rendered more effective? It is a singular 
fact — and I think very suggestive — that the earlier years 
of a man's ministry are generally most fruitful of visible 
results. It would seem fair to conclude that as a preacher 
increased in knowledge, piety, reputation — all elements of 
power — his usefulness would be enlarged. The popular 
belief is that it is so ; and in the absence of visible fruit, 
and under the pressure of mortified feelings, casting about 
for comfort, the preacher argues or concludes it must be so. 
Where is the evidence? Conjectural estimates will not an- 
swer. Logical sequence of natural causes may vindicate 
theoretic hopes, but where are the signs following? Tell 
me not of crowded houses, admiring audiences, newspaper 
eulogies, petitions from the churches for your services. I 
ask for revivals, for converts, for disciples confirmed, for 
churches consecrated, alive, burning with zeal and abound- 



MAKE FULL PROOF OF THY MIX IS THY. 167 

ing in liberality. Can a minister of the Lord Jesus be sat- 
isfied with less? In hope against hope, shall he believe not 
only without evidence, but against evidence, that he is use- 
ful? Ah, brethren! I know you have many a heart-ache 
at this point. You mourn in solitude with tears over your 
unprofitableness; but still the harvest responds not to the 
tiller's toil. Your gifts are prized, admired; you read, 
study, pray ; you have left all to preach, and yet the seed 
you sow seem to fall upon the barren rocks. Why is this? 
Among many minor reasons, I think there are two leading 
causes. First, the Church unduly magnifies your gifts, 
overrates your influence, expects more from you than you 
are able to perform ; transfers her faith from God to you ; 
trusts in manner, eloquence, talent, popularity; and God 
cannot bless your labors without indorsing a vital error in 
the Church, and giving his glory to another. The Church 
all over the land is cursed with this Corinthian spirit. One 
is for Paul, another for Apollos, another for Cephas ; some 
want preachers, some want pastors; some want style, some 
want songs; some want tears, some. want revivalists. Who, 
what are all these? Reeds shaken with the winds; poor, 
powerless instruments. People of Christ, never mind the 
star preachers; send oft" for God Almighty. If he bring 
the golden - mouthed Chrysostom, well; or, if he speak 
through a ram's horn, the walls of Jericho shall fall, and 
victory crown the hosts of Israel. 

Second, the reason perhaps is to be found in our own 
ministry; in the change of topics and of style ; in substituting 
argument for exhortation, the edification of the Church for 
the awakening of sinners; giving undue prominence to the 
conservative over the aggressive, watching the fold when 
we ought to have been hunting the lost. On this subject I 
affirm nothing — certainly do not mean to dogmatize — but I 
suggest in order to awaken inquiry. I am satisfied that the 



168 bishop pierce's sermons and addresses. 

ministry is losing power and the Church being damaged 
in her piety by the prevailing ideas among preachers and 
people. The divine order is inverted, the great commis- 
sion qualified by social claims and local ideas until the 
primary object of the Christian ministry has become sub- 
ordinate to the secondary and collateral. Gospel preachers 
were intended, as a class, to be evangelists, not pastors ; and 
while the progress of society may often make the combina- 
tion of the two offices in the same person necessary, yet all 
parties must recognize the great leading function of the 
ministry to be aggression upon the world of sinners ; while 
the sub-officers of the Church and the personal piety of the 
membership conserve the Church itself. The Methodist 
system was constructed upon this idea, and while we had 
class-leaders and exhorters and class-meetings, the Church 
flourished as the garden of the Lord and the ministry 
counted their converts as the dew of the morning. In my 
early boyhood I was struck with the fact that no Methodist 
preacher — old, young, educated, illiterate, on Sunday, every 
day, everywhere — ever preached, no matter what the text, 
without an appeal to sinners: Repent, or you will perish; 
believe, or you will be damned. When we were young, 
brethren, this was the burden of our preaching. We had 
good times — convictions, and converts, and revivals. But 
now for a long, long time, go where you will, hear whom 
you may, it is all calm instruction, edification of believers, 
experience, moral, some mysterious doctrine or great prin- 
ciple. And generally the grass is too short for the sheep 
to graze, and the water too stagnant to be refreshing. For 
all these things there is a time when the work is well done ; 
but I tell you to keep a Church alive there is nothing like 
a revival. A bright, old-fashioned, sky-blue conversion will 
stir a heart under the ribs of death. An altar full of gra- 
cious mourners will cluster the angels of heaven in jubi- 



MAKE FULL PROOF OF THY' MINISTRY. 169 

lant congregation, and pour the elixir of new life along 
the withered veins even of a lukewarm membership. And 
you, brother, when you had finished your grand argument, 
rounded your brilliant paragraph, swelled your last climax 
to its sounding close, and some admiring hearer told you it 
was "a splendid effort," did not feel half so well as when, 
mixing law and gospel in due proportion, you showed the 
sinner the plague of his heart, and pointed him to the blood 
which makes the wounded whole, some trembling penitent 
grasped you by the hand and said, with quivering lips, 
" Pray for me." The end of our ministry is the salvation 
of sinners. Woe to that man who contents himself with 
good places, fat salaries, pleasant society, and who, because 
he preaches the truth in beautiful language, congratulates 
himself on his well-doings! Once you looked for results, 
expected something; and if the dry bones did not stir, O 
how you prayed for the wind to blow ! You did not ask, 
"Can these dry bones live?" and go to philosophy to jus- 
tify your powerless prophesying; but you wept, you groaned, 
you cried, " Come from the four winds, O breath, and 
breathe upon these slain, that they may live." 

The times demand a ministry thoroughly imbued with 
the light and the spirit of the Bible — men who have their 
intellectual and spiritual being in the Bible, who love to 
range in that element of vigor, that world of wonders. 
There lie the models to be studied and copied ; there sleep 
the spirits to be recuscitated and brought back in fresh 
power upon the world. Out of it, in the sixteenth century, 
sprung the reformers — men who shook heaven, earth, and 
hell. Nothing but the Bible can make such men. Heart 
infidelity under cover of orthodox belief, the depressing 
influence of an almost illimitable worldliness, the cunning 
craftiness, the subtle beguilements of manifold errors, will 
defy every thing but the word of God, which is quick and 



170 bishop pierce's sermons and addresses. 

powerful. Alas for the fancies, the theories, the inven- 
tions of men ! Chaff before the wind. Take away your 
flowery garlands; tear off your swaddling-bandages; un- 
wrap the two-edged sword — let its cherubic lightning gleam ; 
come down with both hands on the monster sin ; strike for 
God and truth and country. Our last hope is in the power 
of the Bible. The old foundations are broken up. Old 
institutions and customs and prejudices are dead. There 
is no reverence for authority or age or forms. The restless 
activities, the licentious spirit that burns unsmothered in 
the bosom of society, the fierce democracy of mind scorn- 
ing alike the opinions of men and the authority of Jeho- 
vah, shut us up to this experiment with divine truth. The 
Bible has encountered kings, aud overcome them; the in- 
stitutions of ages have fallen before its prowess; it has 
fought with superstition and barbarism, and they have 
fled before its light; and now comes the last great conflict 
with unchained, unsanctified liberty. Soldiers of Christ, 
equip yourselves from this divine armory! "Preach the 
word." 

"Be instant in season, out of season." One great draw- 
back upon the efficiency of the modern pulpit is the stereo- 
typed, monotonous order of every thing. Ofttimes the ser- 
mons are full of thought, replete with instruction, adjusted 
in logical order, adorned with rhetorical skill, but some- 
how they fail in doing Christ's work on the souls of men. 
There is about them the dullness of uniformity, the tedium 
of a set task, the drowsy tinkling which lulls and soothes. 
There is no freshness, vivacity, vim ; no electric flash, no 
gathering of the clouds nor falling of the rain. All is 
bright, but cold — a moonlight sheen upon a field of ice. 
Effective preaching will cost the sacrifice of some scholarly 
notions, the leaving out of some stately words, the wither- 
ing of some beautiful flowers. We must throw off the des- 



MAKE FULL PROOF OF THY MINISTRY. 171 

potism of books and authorities, the shackles of a timorous 
and benumbing restraint. Adopt the language of nature, 
take counsel of the great heart of humanity. When will 
men be converted by philosophy or rhetoric or graceful 
speaking? The truth must be thrown into a living form 
of pungency and power. Preachers must take the naked 
gospel and preach repentance, the terrors of the law, the 
atonement, the new birth, eternity, to men with the same 
tact and earnestness that they preach the world in the heat 
of a bargain. We must speak to them, not of them — di- 
rectly, closely to them. We must imitate not Eli in his 
faint, soft remonstrance to his vile, degenerate sons, but 
John the Baptist when he tore the imperial purple from the 
crime of Herod. Church and congregations will bear to 
be told that they are not quite perfect, that they might im- 
prove, that death will come one of these days ; but gospel 
preaching is humbling, stripping, tearing work, dividing 
asunder the soul and the spirit, the joints and the marrow. 
We must probe the wound, lay it bare, give vent to its 
stench and rottenness, apply the knife and the caustic. 
Never mind the groans and the complaints — rub in the 
salt; the disease is mortal — the patient will die without a 
sudden, powerful remedy. 

" Be instant in season, out of season." Ministers are too 
much accustomed to an undeviating method. Regular., as a 
clock, but dull as the pendulum — the same measured sweep, 
the same dull " tic-tack ; " no variety, no music. O give us 
the blast of the bugle-horn as it rings of a dewy morning 
over hill and dale till the earth is alive with echoes! 
^ You preach at stated times, ?md accustomed places. But 
tnis is not enough; vo/a must be prompt, earnest, unwea- 
ried ; preaching when the chances are more favorable and 
when they are less so ; to small assemblies and to large ones ; 
to private circles; in obscure places, in highways and 



172 bishop pierce's sermons and addresses. 

hedges ; to one or to ten thousand ; before friends and foes ; 
when it pays and when it costs something. Embrace every 
opportunity that offers, and thank God for it ; and when 
none offers, seek, make one. What would St. Paul have 
said to one of these dodging, skulking men, who never 
preaches if he can help it, who is always hoarse or sick — or 
thinks he will be if he is not — teasing, worrying everybody, 
anybody to preach for him ; and when he is obliged to do 
it, does it reluctantly, like he was taking physic, and cuts 
short as if he was in a hurry to get to bed again ? The lazy 
can always find excuses ; the willing, earnest man knows no 
difficulties. It is the reproach of Christianity that some 
of her ministers dole out their services like a miser giving 
alms — pernicious, paltry, and seldom repeated. You ought 
to preach, preach often. You ought to love to preach. 
"If I could preach like some men, I would." Ah then, 
brother, you would preach yourself and not Jesus Christ! 
What has your reputation for talent to do with your duty? 
God knew your capacity when he called you to the work, 
and expects only according to what you have. Remember 
it was the man with one talent who buried his lord's money 
and slandered his master in making an apology for himself. 
Do the most and the best you can, and then if any thing 
be wanting, charge it to Christ's account. 

The wants of the Church, the condition of the country, 
the state of religion and public morals, demand men of 
heart, faith, irrepressible energy, and indomitable heroism. 
Reprove, rebuke, with all long-suffering and doctrine. "Re- 
prove," "rebuke" are not exactly interchangeable terms. 
The first means to con vie ce by instruction, correct error, 
amend faults. The latter means to chide, bear strong tes- 
timony against ; includes the sharp appeal, the unshrink- 
ing application, the close, cutting reproof demanded by the 
temptations of business and the flagrancy of crime. These 



MAKE FULL PROOF OF THY MINISTRY, 173 

duties belong to the pulpit, the private interview, and the 
official intercourse with the Church. By instruction and 
discipline the ministry must keep alive the impression that 
sin is not to be tolerated in the Church, that we have no 
fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, that no 
age or sex or title shall protect it from censure and denun- 
ciation, and without hearty abandonment, from excision. 
But, while rigid, unyielding, uncompromising, there must 
be long-suffering, patience, tenderness. If the sons of Levi 
make successful encroachment upon the empire of pollu- 
tion, we must purge out the old leaven, get rid of Achan 
and his stolen gold and his outlandish garment; then we 
can make a bold assault upon the world, and may hope for 
glorious triumph. Long neglect of discipline, adulterous 
communion with the world, have grievously entangled the 
work before us. What sins we have to encounter! — vener- 
able sins, legalized sins, fashionable sins, foolish sins, relig- 
ious sins, sins which have become more extended and more 
firmly intrenched by the long and quiet sufferance of them. 
The pleasant notion of some that the world is growing bet- 
ter, that repugnance to holiness is subsiding, that false re- 
ligions are trembling by the weight of their own absurdi- 
ties, and that the subjection of mankind will soon be an 
easy task, is all an amiable delusion. The difficulties are 
undiminished — I fear augmented. Certain am I that the 
same vigorous element which conquered at first must come 
into play again before we hold our jubilee over a victori- 
ous Church and a world regenerated. O we want men of 
a meek, prudent spirit— wise men, who will preach the word, 
the whole gospel ! In every unregenerate man there is some 
spot that pinches and galls, some habit when the truth 
checks and disturbs him ; right there is his whole quarrel 
with revelation, and against that his passions and preju- 
dices burn and boil together. We want men who will not 



174 bishop pierce's sermons and addresses. 

shrink, but preach on till they have made a record for God 
in the heart, and left an arrow of anguish in the soul. We 
want men of unblenching intrepidity, who will charge idol- 
atry in its securest fortress, assail sin in every refinement 
of its aspect, in all its respectableness of pretension and 
prescriptiveness of claim, in all its relations to wealth, cult- 
ure, influence, and interest. We want men who believe 
that the world will never be made better but by insisting 
upon all that God requires, and that all compromise and 
accommodation of truth is a mortal sin. The conversion 
of the world is not a pecuniary transaction, a commercial 
enterprise, a diplomatic maneuver. The work is not to be 
achieved by books and money and machinery. We must 
all come down to simple praying and preaching. On these 
we must mainly rely. And when the Church apprehends 
her dependence, discards her arithmetic and philosophy, 
and takes hold upon the truth and strength of God, then 
may we look for the wonders of old, the years of the right- 
hand of the Most High. 

"Watch thou in all things. This I understand to mean 
not merely the circumspection enjoined upon all Christians, 
but an intelligent observation of times and events, of opin- 
ions and principles. It is nipping error in the bud, scent- 
ing heresy in the wind, warning the citadel of the distant 
danger. It is to strengthen the weak places, admonish the 
endangered disciple, guard Zion from the insidious ap- 
proaches of evil. Watch against the fond desire, the am- 
bitious impulse, the selfish cravings, the plausible reason- 
ings by which you may be corrupted, your ministry ener- 
vated, and the Church damaged. Take care that your 
good be not evil spoken of. Beware of filthy lucre,* the 
love of gain, trade speculation. Shun a secular spirit as 
you would the plague. Strive against envy, jealousy, a 
hard, censorious, fault-finding temper. Do not think of 



MAKE FULL PROOF OF THY MINISTRY. 175 

yourself more highly than you ought to think. Be hum- 
ble, modest, courteous. Let no man despise your youth or 
reproach your age. "Watch thou in all things." 

" Endure afflictions." Make up your mind to bear with 
patience and equanimity whatever hardship, loss, or peril 
may come along in the regular, faithful discharge of your 
ministry. The time of persecution, in one sense, has passed. 
Our fathers bore the burden and heat of that evil day. Nev- 
ertheless, there are discomforts, inconveniences, and suffer- 
ings — mental and bodily, personal and relative — not a few 
in our itinerant life and labor. But what of them all? 
Christ endured far more for us — the cross and agony and 
shame. We bear our troubles for Jesus' sake. 

Jesus, I my cross have taken, 

All to leave and follow thee; 
Naked, poor, despised, forsaken, 

Thou, from hence, my all shalt be. 

Homeless wanderers, with scanty fare and tattered rai- 
ment, but rich in faith and hope, how happy is the pil- 
grim's lot! 

These times are hard. . An inventory of the Conference 
now would astound the men of the world. So many men, 
such scanty means, how do they live? Ask the widow with 
her empty barrel and vacant cruse. By the blessing of 
God, we endure to this day! Some of you have eaten the 
bread of affliction and mingled your drink with weeping. 
And now, with the skies all dark, your pockets empty, an 
impoverished Church and country all around you, bound 
in spirit, you have come up to Jerusalem not knowing the 
things that shall befall you here. But none of these things 
move you, neither count you your life dear unto you so 
that you may finish your course with joy, and the ministry 
you received of the Lord Jesus to testify the gospel of the 
grace of God. 



176 bishop pierce's sermons and addresses. 

"Do the work of an evangelist.'' I have detained you 
so long, said so much about preachers and preaching, that 
I will not pause now to expound terms or draw nice dis- 
tinctions. Suffice it to say that whatever the original dif- 
ference between apostles and evangelists may have been, it 
is not important now to settle. Apostles now we have none ; 
evangelists we have or ought to have in every man called 
of God to preach the gospel. We shall not wander far from 
the true idea if Ave interpret the expression, " Paul may 
plant, Apollos may water," in the light of the Acts of the 
Apostles, where the works of these holy men are recorded. 
It -seems to have been the office of an evangelist to visit 
the churches; churches where there had been an outpour- 
ing of the Spirit and an ingathering of souls, that they 
might confirm them who had believed through the word ; 
lukewarm churches, that they might fan into flame the dy- 
ing embers, restore the vigor and beauty of earlier and 
better days, and wake the song of Simeon in the heart of 
some old disciple who had been waiting and longing for the 
salvation of God; decayed churches where discord, defec- 
tion, and death had made a solitude to wake once more the 
hum of life, and to make of desolation a garden of the 
Lord; waste places, the " regions beyond " the fields already 
cultivated, the highways and hedges of the world, where 
wander in sin and peril the neglected, the outcast, the for- 
gotten, that he may tell the prodigal of his Father's house, 
the weary of rest, the heavy-laden and sorrow-stricken of 
deliverance and salvation. 

"Make full proof of thy ministry" Improve every tal- 
ent, cultivate every grace; rightly divide the word of truth, 
give every man his portion in due season ; watch, pray, re- 
prove, rebuke, exhort, with all long-suffering and doctrine. 
Go open the eyes of the blind, unstop the ears of the deaf, 
raise the dead if you can, but be sure you preach the gos- 



MAKE FULL PEOOF OF THY MINISTRY. 177 



pel to the poor. Go convince the infidel, put to silence the 
ignorance of foolish men, soothe the anguish of affliction, 
bind up the broken heart, comfort the feeble-minded, but 
teach every man that he must be born again, that neither 
circumcision availeth any thing nor uncircumcision, but A 
new creature. "Take heed therefore unto yourselves, 
and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath 
made you overseers, to feed the Church of God." Feed 
the sheep, feed the lambs, guard the fold. Feed them with 
knowledge, pure doctrine, "sound speech that cannot be 
condemned." Neither adulterate nor dilute the truth. Do 
not neutralize your pulpit deliverances by colloquial levity 
or personal follies, nor neglect your pulpit preparations for 
social gossip or the etiquette of imperious fashion. "Stir 
up the gift that is in thee;" keep no dead capital; hide, 
bury no talent; work while it is called to-day. Never do 
the work of God deceitfully nor carelessly. Make your 
efforts exhaustive of the utmost capacity of your ministry 
for usefulness. Be not satisfied with routine performances. 
Look for results; pray for them; refuse to be comforted 
ti they appear. Better mourn for barrenness all your 
days than once to feel content with fruitless preaching. 
You are not lawyers, to put up with your fee though you 
lose your cause, but ministers of the Lord Jesus, who ought 
to feel that there can be, must be no offset or alleviation 
or apology for failure. The "burden of the Lord" must 
not be lifted by mechanical contrivances, nor eased by 
sympathetic padding, but with meekness, in tears, with ir- 
repressible longings and agonizing intercessions, we must 
bear it till He who laid it upon us shall grant deliver- 
ance by making his pleasure prosper in our hands. God 
in mercy deliver the Church and the world from a bar- 
ren ministry — preachers who neither sow in tears nor reap 
in joy! 
" 12 



173 BISHOP PIERCE'S SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

And now, brethren, emerging as we are from a long, 
disastrous war — the Church disordered, the country im- 
poverished, society revolutionized — your work demands 
great prudence unflagging zeal, and the most unselfish de- 
votion. 



The Office and Work of a Bishop: 



BY DR. LOVICK PIERCE. 



"Beside those things that are without, that which cometh upon 
me daily, the care of all the churches." (2 Cor. xi. 28.) 

fTlHE apostle might be regarded in these remarkable 
words as saying this much by way of defense against 
JL all that the false apostles laid to his charge: "If jus- 
tice were done me in this controversy, it would be admitted 
at once that the burden which comes on me daily — 'the 
care of all the churches' — is as much as any one man. ought 
to bear. But in my case, besides these daily cares that 
originate in the care of all the churches over which I am 
appointed to exercise the pastoral office, there come in upon 
me all those ' things without ' — things not pertinent to my 
universal pastorate, but made incident to it through perse- 
cutions allowed by the abuse of civil authorities and the 
inhumanities of 'false brethren.'" The "things without" 
alluded to by St. Paul, and that added so grievously to the 
burdens of his life, are very fully set forth in the details 
given us in the chapter in which our text is recorded. 
Paul, although he was both a modest and a sensible man, 

* Delivered in Carondelet Street Church, New Orleans, April 29, 
1866, by Kev. Lovick Pierce, D.D.; an ordination sermon upon the 
occasion of the setting to the " office and work " of Bishops in the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, South, of the following-named elders: 
Eev. William May Wightman, D.D., LL.D., Kev. Enoch Mather Mar- 
vin, D.D., Kev. David Seth Doggett, D.D., Kev. Holland Nimmons 
McTyeire, D.D. The preacher was then in his eighty-second year. 
— Editor. 

(179) 



180 BISHOP PIERCE'S SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

could yet be driven into self-defense when the integrity of 
his character was assailed by pretender apostles or preju- 
diced countrymen. But this was always done more on the 
Church's account than his own. 

It is a fact patent to all that most of the attacks made 
upon ministers of Christ for alleged personal faults are most 
generally the outcroppings of a genuine spirit of persecu- 
tion, and are designed to bring the Church, through her 
ministry, into contempt. In such cases, therefore, self- 
defense ceases to be a mere privilege, and becomes a high 
moral duty. But as men of the world generally enter 
upon self-defense, it is justly denominated folly. Indeed, it 
seems to be conceded by sensible people that no one but a 
fool will force upon his friends a vindication of himself 
when no aim or end higher than self-laudation is involved. 
For these reasons St. Paul in such a case always classified 
himself as if he too were a fool. But in the present in- 
stance he took himself out of this category by declaring 
that they had compelled him to this course by their gross 
and base misrepresentation of him. As a rule, silence in 
such a case denotes a doubtful character or a coward. 

Heroism is a trait in human character which, according 
to the credulous faith of the ancients, advanced its possessor 
farther into the sphere of godlike deeds than any other virtue 
common to great minds and hearts, When exercised in such 
cases as those in which St. Paul displayed it, it enters into 
the moral sublime. The waste of ages cannot dim its na- 
tive luster ; no incrustations of rust can ever mar the fine 
polish on its winning face. So long as the manifestation 
of heroism, divine in its origin and aim, shall continue to 
exalt humanity in its courageous endurance of suffering, 
and even of shame in defense of truth and justice, so long 
will it outrank any and every other virtue that can exist 
without the actual presence of religion. Indeed, genuine 



THE OFFICE AXD WORK OF A BISHOP. 181 

heroism approaches in its appearance so nearly to faith 
that if Ave were to see a man professing faith in God hero- 
ically bearing up as Paul did in his noble course against all 
odds, we would account for his heroism on the ground of 
his faith, even though it were purely a constitutional excel- 
lence. AVe conclude, therefore, that the highest style of 
heroism is Christian heroism. 

Sustained by this exalted virtue, which, being sanctified 
by the faith of Christ, made it equal to any emergency, St. 
Paul says : " Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes 
save one; thrice was I beaten with rods [as we naturally 
suppose inflicted according to Roman law]; once was I 
stoned [of Jewish stonings we have an account in the Acts ; 
this stoning was intended to dispatch the apostle as a public 
nuisance. They dragged him out of the city, supposing him 
to be dead ; but while they stood round about him he rose 
up — rose up, no doubt, by divine providence in a way 
sufficiently supernatural to convince them of God's will in 
his life] ; thrice I suffered shipwreck ; a night and a day I 
have been in the deep." [This occurred, no doubt, in con- 
nection with one of these shipwrecks. He floated on a 
spar, or a plank, for twenty-four, hours, and was saved, either 
by being picked up or else by being providentially drifted 
to land.] 

But be these things as they may, we would never have 
heard of some of these catastrophes if Paul's enemies had 
not compelled him to become a fool — as he chooses to phrase 
it — and publish these evidences of his true apostolic character. 
He was no croaker. Indeed, our exalted conceptions of his 
Christian heroism would dwindle down into the contemptible 
drivelings of a mere politician if we could detect in all this 
wonderful experience of St. Paul's arid its narrated ills any 
mere catering for popular sympathy. He made all these 
self-sustaining pleas only in defense of his apostolic charac- 



182 bishop pierce's sermons and addresses. 

ter and mission. Hence, he might well say : " Neither count 
I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course 
■with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the 
Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God." Here 
is a specimen of Christian heroism which stands out in bold 
relief in advance of all other of his fellow-laborers. 

See again what he enumerates as common occurrences in 
his journeyings. These journeyings upon land and water 
were made in painfulness and want, in hunger and thirst, in 
cold and nakedness. In every way, as he tells us, he was 
constantly in peril — in peril by robbers, by his own coun- 
trymen, and among false brethren. Yet we see him press- 
ing his itinerant ministry with a zeal that could not be cooled 
down to the level of a self-preserving caution. His cir- 
cuit extended from "Jerusalem round about to Illyricum." 
Through this vast circuit this evangelical apostle swept in 
order, as he tells us, that he might break new ground all 
the time. His great heart could not stoop to the selfishness 
of a local pastorate and the comparative littleness of " re- 
joicing in another man's line of things, made ready to his 
hand." His soul went out into the regions beyond, where 
Christ had not been named. 

This was once characteristic of every itinerant Methodist 
preacher I knew. Not one of us ever had appointments 
enough if an opportunity to establish another where Christ 
had not been preached occurred. I fear that this age of 
Methodism passed away — or began to pass away — with the 
end of the one-year law of pastoral service. Let no broth- 
er enter an objection here until he is satisfied that itiner- 
ancy in its original form was not as well calculated to carry 
the gospel into the regions beyond as it will be when it is 
separated — chiefly by a mere name — from a settled minis- 
try. It admits of no controversy that if the apostolic mode 
of preaching was by divine appointment, and in many cases 



THE OFFICE AND WORK OF A BISHOP. 183 

by specific divine assignment, strictly itinerant primitive 
Methodist itinerancy as a mode of preaching the gospel 
has for its authority apostolic example over all more re- 
stricted modes of applying the gospel to the wants of the 
world. Among the good effects of itinerancy are these: 
that it does away with the frequent evils of calling a preach- 
er, saves the congregation from the burden of a pastorate 
too long continued, and avoids the disturbances that follow 
enforced separations. And it will always be a law of our 
itinerancy that, although a minister may remain four years 
on the same work, yet he may be changed every year, and 
must be reappointed each year of the possible four. Hence, 
our people are quiet in the assurance that they may rely 
upon our Bishops to change pastors when it may be deemed 
best, or to continue them within the limitation of the law 
when there is good reason. A change once a year is the 
only ever-present, controlling law of our itinerancy. All 
extension of service is only a privilege; no Methodist 
preacher has any right to arrange for more than one year 
at a place. So long as our distinctive feature is itinerancy, 
if any extension of the pastorate ever becomes useful to the 
Church it must be on the ground of some sort of divine inti- 
mation that the ministry of the pastor is not fulfilled in his 
particular field. The extension, to be in harmony with the 
genius of Methodism, must be on the ground of ministerial 
fidelity and the needs of the Church, and not on any mere 
law basis, or clamor growing out of social popularity. 

Tell me now who can of a single Methodist Church in 
any of our fashionable cities that is likely to ask the return 
of a pastor even for a second year on the ground of his 
fidelity in the administration of the moral discipline of the 
Church against all worldly and carnal amusements — evils 
which, by not a few among us, are now being defended as 
legitimate pleasures and pastimes. I hope there are a few 



184 bishop pierce's sermons and addresses. 

such Churches, but I fear they are too few to save our holy 
form of Methodism from a worldly canker which, like the 
prophetic gangrene, only foretells the certainty of advanc- 
ing death upon the vital organs of a once healthy constitu- 
tion. 

Our pastoral term cannot be extended by a mere law de- 
termination beyond one year at a time without dama.r f 
the spirit of our itinerant ministry. Such a ministry can- 
not be maintained intact after the spirit of compromise in 
the Church becomes so prevalent as to make compromises 
every few years with a body of preachers who, while proudly 
ing of an itinerant ministry as the most effective in- 
strumentality of '"spreading scriptural holiness through 
these lands,'' are all the time approximating a settled minis- 
try by the extension of the pastoral term within a theoretical 
itinerant ministry. Indeed, if the views lately defended in 
General Conference on this subject shall ever find their way 
into the Discipline, and the extension of the pastoral term 
becomes a matter ol indefinite privilege, our itinerancy, as 
a great and happy conception of the best and surest method 
of speedily preaching the gospel to every creature, will be 
reduced to a mere thing of name, and men's devotion to the 
system itself will be graduated by the pliability of the Bish- 
op and the chances of remaining indefinitely on some :-:---. 
remunerative work. I am sorry my judgment in this 
is so constrained that I cannot substitute it by one that 
recognizes in preachers a loftier demeanor. .1 am not sure 
that I should ever have become an itinerant preacher at all 
under any such economy as this indefinite privilege pro- 
poses. Such ill-judged innovations upon the essential ele- 
ment in an itinerant ministry will lead in a quarter of a 
century to the elimination of every thing distinctive and 
effective in an itinerant ministry, and of course and 1; 
sequence virtually and, as I believe, really destroy, our 



THE OFFICE AND WORK OF A BISHOP. 185 

episcopacy, and make us sure enough — if we deserved a 
Church name at all — "The Methodist Church."* 

Now, I do not believe that any one among all the advo- 
cates of an indefinite pastoral term and of dropping from our 
denominational title its " episcopal " identity ever dreamed 
of these changes running by sequential law into such radi- 
cal alterations in Methodist economy as to change in a few 
years the whole front of practical and aggressive Method- 
ism. Yet I believed these ill results would follow, and 
therefore I voted against all measures which, in my opin- 
ion, if ever incorporated in our laws, would, by the natural 
issue of things, ultimately annul our itinerancy and our 
episcopal general superintendency. In both cases the issue 
might appear as accidental, while in reality it would be 
bound up in the law of cause and effect. 

As it regards episcopacy I cannot conceive how any man 
with due self-respect could ever consent to be ordained a 
Bishop after his General Conference had made the pastoral 
term, to all intents and purposes, practically indefinite. In 
such a case every preacher would be at liberty — if from 
love of ease or in ignorance of his people's wishes he desired 
to return to his charge — to make his return or removal a 
personal matter between him and the Bishop. It is not 
worth while to tell me any thing about what Methodist 
preachers have been ; it is what they are now, and what 
their legislative proclivities indicate, that forms the stand- 
point from which I take my observation. It is enough for 
me to know from personal observation that Methodist itin- 
e. ancy has not achieved such ministerial wonders in the 
earth since the one-year pastoral term was extended to two 
years as it did before. Nor need any one wonder why this 

* This name had been proposed during the General Conference 
instead of the old name, " Methodist Episcopal Church, South."— 
Editor. 



186 BISHOP PIERCE S SERMONS AXD ADDRESSES. 

is so. It is enough for us to know that whatever costs the 
most self-sacrifice — if the sacrifice be cheerfully made for 
the kingdom of heaven's sake — will receive the largest in- 
dorsement of divine approval, because it enters more fully 
into the divine rule of faith, and because it secures a more 
devoted ministry. All attempts on our part to soften this 
bed, or to lighten this burden which takes hold on self-sac- 
rifice, is obliged to divest the ministry cf some portion of 
its divine sanction; for God cannot sanction a system of 
service that allies itself with selfish motives. 

The four years, where we now rest awhile, is only a com- 
promise, an encampment between an itinerant ministry 
properly ordered and maintained and a nominal one, kept 
up by a lingering prejudice in favor of itinerancy because 
of its grand achievements when early Methodism was con- 
tending for its apostolic character. Strike itinerancy out 
avowedly and none, so long as the present generation re- 
main, could ever again feel that they were in the original 
Methodist Church. These attachments will preserve a nom- 
inal itinerancy in our Church for years to come. But it 
will be mainly effected only in so far as a sacred judgment 
may be used in honor of a once renowned reality. 

These successive movements will end in a usage whereby 
these expectant beneficiaries will remain on their clover- 
patches as long as the law of privilege will allow of return, 
while others are shut out who really ought to be favored, if 
the dispensing of favors could be made at ail compatible 
with the offices of those who are chosen and ordained Lo the 
responsible "care of all the churches." But this is impos- 
sible. I maintain, fearless of contradiction, that the true - 
work of a Methodist Bishop is only done when, with the 
best lights he can gather on his pathway, he distributes the 
preachers in view of the wants of the churches, for every 
one of which, as an apostolic Bishop, he was chosen to care. 



THE OFFICE AND WORK OF A BISHOP. 187 

It is only in a very limited and subordinate sense that a 
Bishop can be controlled by the personal interests and con- 
veniences of the preachers. It has always been, and I hope 
always will be, the understanding of our Church that our 
ministers, when they voluntarily enter into our itinerancy, 
lay themselves as a " living sacrifice" upon the altar of 
suffering and service for the Church, and not that the 
Church is to be offered in any way as a sacrifice upon the 
altar of ministerial accommodation. Suppose, under our jn'es- 
ent unfortunate law of privilege, it should frequently turn out 
that when one of our best pastors has been two years in one 
of those delightful charges, and from which no one could 
wish to be removed, and while he is still decidedly useful 
there, and while the charge still desires his return until the 
law of privilege is utterly exhausted, the Bishop should 
feel compelled to remove him. Suppose, I say, that at the 
end of two years — the point from which we haveremoved 
our old itinerant ship in order to gain more marginal lati- 
tude — this man of God, upon whom you solemnly impose 
the great trust, " the care of all the churches, ' should feel 
satisfied that the care of some of the churches demands at 
his hands the removal of this popular and useful pastor to 
some new charge where his eminent pastoral ability would 
yield a larger income to the Church than could be gained 
by his return to his late charge, what ought a Methodist 
Bishop, a consecrated man of God, to do in such a case? 

With all our invasion of episcopal prerogative, it is still 
a fundamental article of faith in our economy that in all 
such cases the determining power is with the Bishop. But 
suppose the presiding elder, who in some degree stands re- 
lated to his district as the Bishop does to the Conference, 
having his feelings unduly enlisted in behalf of this man's 
return, should earnestly oppose the Bishop's judgment, and 
insist on the preacher's return to his late field of labor at 



188 bishop pierce's sermons and addresses. 

least for a third year. Perhaps most of the great jury in- 
cidentally impaneled to answer this question will say: " The 
Bishop ought to exercise his conscientious judgment in this 
case, and send this man where the interests of the Church 
more imperiously demand his pastoral qualifications." Very 
well ; but if the General Conference had let the two years' 
term alone, and had taken the ground that all changes in 
this direction were of hazardous possibilities in regard to 
the future of Methodism, both in relation to a self-sacrific- 
ing ministry and an independent episcopacy, it would have 
met with an universal indorsement — unless, indeed, there 
should be a few preachers among us who are carried away 
with the vain hope that if they could get into the Discipline 
something like this indefinite privilege of return they could 
work themselves into a sort of settled pastorate under an 
itinerant flag. This would be the "honorary degree" in 
the itinerancy. Such preachers, however — if there are any 
such — would after all become in a ministry properly itiner- 
ants, the ignoble of the band ; every such preacher urging 
and finally carrying such a law would increasingly embar- 
rass every member of the Conference, doomed to desire no 
favors from any mere privileged grant of power to the epis- 
copacy. The zeal of such preachers might turn out to be 
zeal for your places. The point I am coming to is this : If 
the two years' term had been left as it was, then, in the case 
I have supposed, the presiding Bishop would have had no 
difficulty in using this important preacher just as his im- 
posed "care of all the churches" dictated he should use 
him. But now the fearful fact to be seen is this : Every 
step in this direction is a step into the wilderness. Such a 
preacher as our illustration has supposed might have felt 
aggrieved at being removed from a place of many comforts 
to one of few at the end of one year, seeing that the law 
would have allowed him two, but for the Bishop's conscien- 



THE OFFICE AND WORK OF A BISHOP: 189 

tious belief that he was, by the obligations of his office, 
bound to consider the wants of the Church of much higher 
grade in moral obligation than the comparative comfort of 
a preacher. But whatever of discontent might arise in the 
former case, the extension of the pastorate from two years 
to four has really increased the ground of complaint and 
the occasions of discontent by the difference between the 
loss of one year and the loss of three. 

Surely every practical mind will see that whatever was 
ever gained to Methodism by the severity of its ease-sacrificing 
spirit of itinerancy — while it was yet the ruling passion in 
the ministry to suffer hardship for the kingdom of heaven's 
sake — must be lost to it exactly in proportion to all the 
changes wrought in its working economy with any view to 
self-indulgence. 

I am solemnly emphatic in my use of the words "with 
any view to self-indulgence." My postulate is that Meth- 
odism has been losing in her early aggressive spirit and 
energy ever since she gave up the one-year pastoral term. 
The change to two years was a sort of self-indulgent com- 
promise. It had become a matter of trouble to move every 
year ; hence, the law was changed so as to allow the Bishop 
to send a preacher back a second year if he thought proper. 
But, as w T as expected by the friends of this extension privi- 
lege, it soon came to be looked upon as a sort of right to 
stay two years on any good, fair field of ministerial labor ; 
so much so that nothing but the well-known fact that the 
legal necessity to remove one man created the moral neces- 
sity to remove another. But for this the removal of a man 
from an easy, desirable field of labor until it had been oc- 
cupied two years would lead to murmurings and disaffection 
fatal to a high-souled and high-toned itinerancy, and also 
to an episcopacy determined to use the ministers put at its 
disposal for the sroodof the Church as a whole in such fields 



190 bishop pierce's sermons and addresses. 

of labor as the evident necessities of the Church might most 
clearly indicate to them 

As to the change from one year to two, I affirm to-day 
it was not brought about from any clear idea that it would 
inure to any increase of ministerial force or success in an 
itiuerant ministry ; it was conceived of and brought into 
being as a measure of self-accommodation. The change 
from two years to four is upon the same principle. No one 
has dreamed that the Church will receive any fresh impulse 
in the way of spiritual life by this change. It is true it was 
pleaded for on the ground of great good to arise from longer 
familiarity with the same pastor. But no one believed that 
the chance to hear the same man four years successively 
would render the itinerant ministry more effective by ren- 
dering it more self-sacrificing. Nor did any one suppose 
that a ministry already alarmingly remiss in the exercise 
of discipline against disorderly walking in the Church — an 
evil known to be on the increase — who had already neg- 
lected this divine order in the Church under the two years' 
regime, would give the Church a wholesome pastoral ad- 
ministration under the extension to a four years' term. 
Therefore, I am obliged to infer the presence of a self-ac- 
commodating spirit rather than the apostolic spirit which 
urged on Christian ministers as the principal virtue in a 
man called to preach the gospel to every creature the "en- 
durance of hardness as good soldiers of the Lord Jesus 
Christ." If the General Conference had provided that the 
Bishops might return the same man to the same work, even 
♦indefinitely, on an official request from the people of his 
charge on the four following grounds : (1) That his minis- 
try was still fresh and instructive as at first ; (2) that his 
intercourse with the people at all times was strictly minis- 
terial and pastoral; (3) that he diligently instructed the 
children as required in the Discipline; (4) and especially 



THE OFFICE AND WORK OF A BISHOP. 191 

that he faithfully executed the moral discipline of the 
Church against disorderly members — then I should have 
felt that the privilege of indefinite extension of the pastoral 
term was one of great promise to our Church. But in the 
absence of such evidences and upon the occurrence of a 
four years' ministration, -with popular applause and a lax 
discipline, both our ministry and our people will inevitably 
degenerate. And the time will come when the fearful mal- 
ediction of God, "Woe to them that are at ease in Zion!" 
will fall upon us. 

It is likely that the world-wide commission with which 
Christ sent out his first preachers implies, upon the very 
face of it, that their successors throughout all time should 
feel that the desire and the will to preach to the greatest 
number of sinners would be an indispensable passion. 
Would not one-half of this great nation have been a moral 
waste until this day had there been no Methodist itiner- 
ancy? And have not many of these pioneers, in planting 
churches in this great wilderness, preached to thousands of 
listening sinners in their annual dispersions among the scat- 
tered inhabitants of our once Western wilds, while upon 
our present four-year plan, if it had been used as a rule, 
they would only have preached to as many hundreds? I 
close this section of the discourse by giving the following as 
my opinion : Put any preacher you have got upon a station, 
and keep him there four years, preaching on an average to 
one thousand hearers, then send him to the same class of 
hearers, a year at a place, with a thousand average hearers 
at each place, there will be twice as many souls converted 
out of his four thousand as out of his one thousand hearers. 
If this be true, then every extension of the pastoral term 
will be a fearful contraction of the number of souls each 
one of us might preach to in a common life-time. The 
willingness of a Methodist preacher to shut up his ministry 



192 BISHOP PIERCE'S SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

to the hearing of five or six hundred souls for four years 
when, by a little more labor and self-sacrifice, he might 
preach to five or six thousand souls in the same length of 
time, is good prima facie evidence that in his preference he 
belongs rather to a settled than to an itinerant ministry. 
Herein are the reasons of my settled opposition to any ex- 
tension of the pastoral term to any mere law terminus. No 
one, I dare say, among all the advocates of this extension 
plan will admit my conclusions ; yet I maintain my posi- 
tion on this question to be true, or else a law in chemistry 
several times instanced by St. Paul as evidently true, and 
as perfectly illustrative of moral sequences, is false — to wit, 
that in all these things " a little leaven leaveneth the whole 
lump." Under this law of inevitable consequences it is 
only necessary to ascertain whether this spirit of extension 
belongs in its family associations most naturally to an act- 
ual traveling or to a substantially settled, or congregational, 
ministry. For if the wish to remove all restrictions so as to 
allow our episcopacy to return a man all his life to the same 
pastoral charge belongs in its inherent laws to the causes 
which have already tied down so many ministers to a mere 
garden-spot instead of turning them loose in a world of sin- 
ners lost, as has been the case with many of this abnormal 
race of preachers, who have whittled out sermons by the 
week, and suffered ten times more about the literary merits 
of their pulpit performance than about the wants of a large 
class of their fellow-citizens, who by force of circumstances 
are out of reach of the preaching-place and are cut off from 
the advantages of stated preaching and church privileges, 
but who might have been served by some itinerant Meth- 
odist preacher, if the good work did call him to sacrifice a 
day of his selfish home-indulgences upon the altar of minis- 
terial service, or by some settled minister if it did not call 
him to risk his literary reputation by too much extempore 



THE OFFICE AND WORK OF A BISHOP. 193 

preaching. Now, this leaven of a settled pastorate was at 
work in the General Conference when a vote in favor of an 
indefinite extension was easily passed, and was only recon- 
sidered and modified so as to compromise between contend- 
ing parties, the prevalent spirit showing itself clearly in 
taking the longest term proposed. 

To me it is no small matter to know that I am in the 
apostolic succession. I do know that we are in this line so 
far as our itinerant ministry is concerned. There is no 
original evidences of any settled ministry in the apostolic 
organization of Churches. Christ himself was an itinerant 
preacher. The twelve apostles during their Master's life- 
time did not, I apprehend, preach at all. They were called 
to be witnesses of their Lord and Master both to the Jews 
and also to the Gentiles. While Christ was among them 
in the flesh, they were in a process of preparation for his 
ministry. It was intended that they should graduate only 
after reaching the fullest conviction that Jesus Christ was 
the Son of God. (See Matt. xvi. 16, 19; John xvi. 31.) 
They were to constitute a grand board of commissioners on 
earth to represent their Great Teacher — his doctrines, his life, 
his death, and his resurrection. Even after his resurrec- 
tion these disciples who had gone in and out before him 
were directed to "tarry at Jerusalem until they were in- 
dued with power from on high." While the apostles were 
yet with him in their preparatory course, Jesus ordained 
seventy others and sent them out, two and two, on their 
thirty-five circuits, into every city and town, whither he 
himself would come. For Christ never sends his ministers 
where he does not go with them. These seventy disciples 
returned flushed with success, and reported that " even the 
devils were subject unto them" through their Master's 
name. They were really sent out by divine call and ap- 
13 



194 bishop Pierce's sebmons axd addresses. 

pointment ; but they were called and sent out as itinerant 
preachers. After the Pentecostal baptism the twelve and 
the seventy and all became itinerant preachers together. 
Paul the apostle, who considered himself as least and last 
among the apostles, but claimed apostleship by divine ap- 
pointment — perhaps without any human ordination — was 
eminently itinerant. 

This general amalgamation of these first ministers of 
Christ in the great itinerant system of preaching we know 
from the records in the Acts of the Apostles — a book writ- 
ten, as I believe, in order to teach the Church a clear out- 
line of an organism best adapted to the planting of Chris- 
tianity in all the earth. We know of .this unity in practice 
by the frequent mention of the twelve among the other itin- 
erants in this grand invasion of the empire of hoary idol- 
atry. The beautiful and exact parallelism that appears 
between this apostolic itinerancy and the itinerancy of Wes- 
leyan Methodist preachers brings us very closely into the 
line of apostolic succession. And unless I am much mis- 
taken, we will come into this apostolic line just as closely in 
our chosen episcopacy. 

What, therefore, God has evidently modeled for us let us 
not spoil by remodeling it to suit our selfish indulgences; 
but let us rather build " according to the pattern shown us" 
in the Acts. Itinerancy, as a system of preaching to make 
converts to Christ, can never be substituted by any other 
mode of preaching that can supply its opportunities to do 
good in exact accordance with God's intentions to have the 
gospel preached to the poor. An itinerant preacher, filled 
with the love of Christ and the consequent love of souls, 
feels like a philanthropic physician employed to heal and 
comfort the destitute and the afflicted. His obligation is per- 
fect outside of any consideration as to the ability of benefici 
aries to reward him. So have itinerant Methodist preach- 



THE OFFICE AL r D WORK OF A BISHOP. 195 

ers in their grand rounds labored for the good of men. They 
■were not looking out for congregations that could feed them, 
but for souls that they could feed. It is as true as gospel 
that universal sympathy with human souls is only to be 
looked for in the hearts of evaugelists ; for their hearts, be- 
ing comparatively dead to all domestic and local ties, live 
at ease and comfort only in the one great business of bring- 
ing sinners home to God. 

But let us come, secondly, to consider the import of St. 
Paul's apostolic language : " That which cometh upon me daily y 
the care of all the churches!' And here, my beloved breth- 
ren in the episcopacy already, and my brethren who are now 
to be ordained as our episcopal pastors, let me fix your anx- 
ious minds with intense concern upon this question : "Are 
we henceforth to be burdened with the care of the church- 
es?" You are. And it is my duty to show you that in im- 
posing upon you this heavy burden we only follow the light 
shed upon our pathway by apostolic example. 

The question of two or of three orders in the ministry of 
Christ must have a brief notice. I see not how any episco- 
pal Church that goes beyond a mere election to some offi- 
cial position and adds to such election a solemn ordination, 
ceremonially performed with prayer and the imposition of 
hands, setting apart a man from among the elders to a spe- 
cific work in the gospel ministry, can deny a third order in 
that ministry. Solemn ordination to an acknowledged min- 
isterial function, permanently set up in Church organiza- 
tion, is obliged to be an order. Exactly so do I understand 
Methodist episcopacy. It is true our people have been wont 
to separate our episcopacy from the doctrine of a third or- 
der in the ministry simply because Mr. Wesley believed 
there was no order in the simple gospel ministry above that 
of a regularly constituted presbyter. So all of us believe. 
When an elder is promoted into a Bishop he has no more 



196 bishop pierce's sermons and addresses. 

ministerial order than he had before; but he does have more 
ministerial rights and powers. He becomes a universal 
pastor within the jurisdictional limits of his episcopal dio- 
cese. And if the elders so determine in their ecclesiastical 
polity, no ordination can be valid only as it is done by epis- 
copal hands — either alone, as in the ordination of deacons, 
or assisted by presbyters when elders are ordained. But 
still, as we believe, there is no merely ministerial order above 
that of elders. We believe, as Wesley did, that when the 
necessity arises elders can restore the episcopal series again. 
To determine upon the episcopal form of government by a 
distinct ordination to the office is to determine that there are 
three orders in the gospel ministry in the structure of that 
Church organization. But we do not say that a Church 
cannot be constructed outside of episcopal ordination, and 
that there is a line of episcopal order directly descended to 
us from apostolical ordination. We see not how w r hat we 
mean by Bishops could ever have been created except by 
regular ministerial ascension in the w r ay of orderly conse- 
cration for ministerial pastoral care and authority. Accord- 
ingly, w T e find in St. Paul's pastoral epistles, beginning with 
the diaconate, the following language : " They that have 
used the office of a deacon w 7 ell purchase to themselves a good 
degree, and great boldness in the faith which is in Christ 
Jesus." This "good degree," as I understand it, is the 
eldership, and, if this view is correct, goes far to prove the 
correctness of the faith of all Episcopalians in the matter 
of ministerial orders above that of Presbyterians. The 
Episcopal Churches alone, I think, have an order of ministe- 
rial deacons. In other Churches "licentiates" are at once 
transformed into elders. But the text quoted from 1 Tim., 
chapter iii., verse 13, as also the narration of St. Luke in Acts 
vi., both indicate the correctness of the view here advanced. 
Some of those deacons were preachers, and I infer they all 



THE OFFICE AND WORK OF A BISHOP. 197 

were preachers. Paul's salutation to the saints at Philippi 
— including the Bishops and deacons — places the deacons in 
a distinct class in the Church, separated by positive order 
both from the saints and the Bishops, or, as some would 
prefer to say, the elders. This pastoral epistle shows most 
clearly that the same general moral qualifications demanded 
in the deacons were required as positively necessary in the 
life of a minister called to the office of a Bishop. A Bishop 
is divinely intended to be a ruler in the Church of God ; 
and the argument is that a man who does not rule his own 
house well cannot be intrusted with the government of the 
Church. 

The title of Bishop is synonymous with that of overseer. 
But overseer really means one invested with ruling power 
over many persons properly subject to some great owner 
of the premises overseered by such legitimate agent. And 
here let me remind those who may come after me that the 
guardian authorities of our Church have not observed at 
all times, as was meet, this apostolic direction concerning the 
admission of men into holy orders. I have seen elders in 
our Church who did not rule their children or households 
as the divine appointment as to this order requires. And 
I will venture the remark that not one of this class ever 
showed any ability in taking care of the Church. Confer- 
ence should guard the door to ministerial orders; the Bish- 
ops must have men who know how to care for the Church, 
and will do it, or else all their "care of the churches" is 
unavailing. 

Let us look a little farther into the dignity of the episco- 
pal office. Is it a mere agency created by a body of men 
who are the legislators of the Church, and incidentally 
electors of Bishops, of such sort that the agent can be de- 
posed from his place by mere resolution of the body that 
elected him? Can such deposition proceed upon the ground 



198 bishop pierce's sermons axd addresses. 

of some grievance, real or fancied, without any charge 
against his moral character or complaint agaiost his official 
acts? Do not our Bishops pass, by virtue of their conse- 
cration, into the hands of an ecclesiastical court, duly con- 
stituted for determining for what and when and how a 
Bishop may be deposed? If this is not the true view, and 
a Bishop knows his danger of degradation from his office 
for something like the holding of a political opinion by a 
mere vote of a majority of the General Conference chanc- 
ing to differ from such opinion, then I have to say that a 
man willing to be Bishop in such a case must have but lit- 
tle of lofty self-respect. 

We hold that the office enters into and becomes a part 
of the man, so that while he may forfeit his right to exer- 
cise the office by moral delinquencies, and may, upon a 
proper charge and after fair trial before a proper court 
having constitutional jurisdiction in the case, be deposed, or 
even excommunicated, yet he cannot be deposed upon a res- 
olution without a charge by a simple declaration that it is 
the sense of General Conference that Bishop Anybody should 
cease to exercise the episcopal function so long, for instance, 
as he is connected with Freemasonry, because he knew at 
the time he became connected with it that we, the majority, 
had declared Freemasonry to be the sum of all villainies. 
I have used Freemasonry here in the place of another as- 
sumed disqualification for the exercise of the functions of 
an invested right, and I have brought in the subject here 
because I am preaching an ordination sermon preparatory 
to the ordination of four Bishops. And I do this farther 
because multitudes of our people have always believed that 
the division of the Church in 1844 was wholly on the slav- 
ery question, whereas slavery was only an occasion in the 
premises. It might almost be affirmed, without modifica- 
tion, that the Church was divided on the question of the 



THE OFFICE AND WORK OF A BISHOP. 199 

episcopal office — whether in relation to the authority of the 
General Conference it was like a gentleman's coat loaned 
in a friendly way to a Mend which can be resumed again 
at the call of the real owner, or whether it was an invested 
right, like an equitable right to real estate which could only 
be alienated by a decree in equity showing a forfeiture of 
right. The majority acted on the ground that the General 
Conference, being the supreme legislative council in Amer- 
ican Episcopal Methodism, had a right to depose a Bishop 
as an employe of the General Conference without trial or 
charges or specifications according to ecclesiastical laws. 
Thus it will be seen that the protest on which rested the 
justification of the minority was a protest against extra- 
judicial proceedings. 

But, brethren now awaiting ordination, we do not so un- 
derstand your relation to this General Conference. We are 
proud to say to you that when we confer upon you episco- 
pal honors and power, we place you beyond the reach of 
our arbitrary action. You may forfeit your right to your 
office, and lose it in some other court, but we cannot depose 
you by adopting a resolution that you are " deposed from 
your office till you dissolve your connection with — your 
mustache." 

From all this it will appear that we attach much higher 
dignity and sacredness to the episcopal office than the ma- 
jority did in 1844. 

But I resume again the question of a third order in the 
gospel ministry. It is true the New Testament does not 
speak of a third order only in the way of official title — 
Bishop — which, when considered as the appropriate title of 
an office filled by serving an interest vast in its boundary 
and immense in its value, rises at once into a dignity far 
above any that is suggested by the mere name presbyter. 



200 BISHOP PIERCE' S SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

Indeed, it is clear to me that the duties and responsibilities 
peculiar to such an episcopacy as ours, in the very nature 
of things, constitutes an order in the gospel ministry. You 
cannot graft these powers on a mere eldership ; they de- 
mand a special ordination ; and without formal consecration 
by prayer and the laying on of hands, such an officer as 
Bishop could not be recognized in the Church. No mere 
appointee from among the elders, without episcopal ordina- 
tion, could ever have done the work of our Bishops. And 
this of itself goes a good way in proof of my opinion, which 
is this: that' this very sense of fitness is good presumptive 
proof that there is such an order, because there is such an 
office. In the ordination service itself there is evidence of 
the consciousness that ordination to any distinct ministerial 
work, not common to all elders as elders, is the recognition 
of an order for that particular work. To elders we commit 
authority to preach and to administer the holy sacrament, 
while to Bishops we commit authority to " perform the of- 
fice and work of a Bishop in the Church of God." His 
right to preach and to administer sacraments are not now 
committed — not even enlarged. In all this it seems to me 
that a Bishop is intended to superintend, to oversee the 
Church ; to see that the under-shepherds all do their minis- 
terial and pastoral duties faithfully. Our Bishops are not 
pastors in the sense of personal care of the members of the 
flock; they are pastors of pastors; they are to supervise 
the whole work of the Church, and see that its machinery 
is all kept in good working order. 

The glory of our episcopacy is that from the beginning 
till this day our Bishops, the living and the dead, have kept 
themselves unspotted from the world. And we feel entire 
confidence in you all that your future will be as praise- 
worthy as your past has been. You must not let your 



THE OFFICE AND WORK OF A BISHOP. 201 

overtasking work tempt you to take any ease by substitut- 
ing a care for all the churches in place of "the care of all 
the churches." And you must do all you can to make the 
care of all the churches in your more arduous fields of la- 
,bor a rebuking example to us who are your under-shep- 
herds. A little self-indulgence in you will be contagious 
among us. It is a remarkable notification to us from 
our Lord that the higher we rise in ministerial dignity 
the more does it become our duty to make ourselves serv- 
ants to all. Nobility in the gospel ministr" is increase of 
work. 

Go, then, my brethren, unto your new fields of labor. We 
w r ill not send you out without our blessing and our prayers. 
But the Lord's blessing is your only hope. It is for this 
we will pray. In your blessing and in your success we are 
all blessed. Go, then, and feed the flock of Christ over 
which the Holy Ghost hath this day made you overseers. 
And remember that you are more than sentinels charged 
with the care of an army of defense. You are this day 
constituted watchmen to watch against all wolves that may 
seek to destroy Christ's sheep. Your burden would be 
weighty if by this preferment you were charged with the 
care of all civil and social order and good behavior. But 
before all these interests your charge rises up into immor- 
tality in its endurance and into sacredness in its nature. 
You are charged with the care of the Church which God 
is said to have "purchased with his own blood," and w 7 hose 
members he keeps as the "apple of his eye." You are, 
therefore, the trustees of an interest too precious to be 
bought with silver and gold, an interest bought with the 
precious blood of Christ, and therefore an interest whose 
neglect is profane. We expect you, therefore, to address 
yourselves wholly to "the perfecting of the saints," to the 
work of the ministry, to the edifying of the body of Christ, 



202 BISHOP PIERCE'S SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

until we all come in the unity of faith, and of the knowl- 
edge of the Son of God, unto the measure of the stature 
of the fullness of Christ, to whom be the glory, both now 
and forever. Amen. 



PubliG Opinion.* 



THE tendency of the world is to a state of society in 
which opinion rather than law shall dictate and 
control the actions of men. Nor is the issue to be 
deprecated. The fact indicates the comparative perfecti- 
bility of our race. The law — even the law of God in its 
details, its specific injunctions and prohibitions — was not 
made for the righteous, the good, but for the disobedient, 
the profane, the bad. The necessity of government origi- 
nates in the lawless passions of mankind ; and while recog- 
nized as a divine ordinance and as essential to internal peace 
and public order, and to national amity and relations, yet, 
under our constitutional theory, the best government is that 
which by any direct force governs the least. This apparent 
paradox, however, presupposes such an enlightenment of 
the people, and such an infusion of the religious element — 
at least so far as proper moral judgments are concerned — as 
shall enable the masses to know their duty and interest, and 
incline them to do the one and seek the other. On a sim- 
ple calculation of advantages and disadvantages as to time, 
character, and influence, men are presumed so to apprehend 
the legitimate end of a true government as to obey its rules 
not so much from reference to their authority as from a wise 
estimate of personal and relative interest. The great prin- 
ciples of justice as they relate to persons and property pre- 
vail in this country — not because of the penal sanctions by 

*A Commencement Address before the University of Georgia, 
Athens, Ga., July, 1878.— Editor. 

(203) 



204 bishop pierce's sermons and addresses. 
— » 

which they are guarded and enforced, but from the percept 
tion of their essential rectitude, respect to public opinion, 
and as to many from the fear of God. The same may ba 
affirmed of the common morals which dignify the reputa- 
ble citizen. These men do right, not from a special judg- 
ment in any particular case, but from convictions which 
have radicated into habits, and, save when interfered with 
by some powerful counter-impulse, act with the force and 
regularity of instinct. The highest style of human char- 
acter is not formed by the mechanical operations of arbi- 
trary laws, constraining from an unwilling subject a reluc- 
tant obedience, but is the result of opinions and principles 
derived, it is true, from God, and supported by the spirit 
of grace and the retributions of eternity, yet, acting through 
the medium of intellect, knowledge, and conscience, in con- 
formity with the constitutional laws of mind and heart, 
which if obeyed, even from lower motives and considera- 
tions, elevates man far above the unreasoning savage or the 
vagabond of civilization. 

These views, carried out to their ultimate results, and 
sublimed and sanctified by Christianity, will realize the 
visions of prophecy on earth as the Bible ideas of heaven 
in eternity. The transformation of human nature into the 
divine image, and man's conformity to the mind and will 
of the Deity, will involve the regeneration — if not the aboli- 
tion — of the present order of things, physical, social, polit- 
ical, and religious. The world and its organizations will 
cease to be, and the kingdom that Christ now maintains in 
all that is peculiar to it will be delivered up, and then, as to 
the vnfallen angels and the saved of earth — the aborigines 
of heaven and the redeemed colonies from this old world — 
one mind will rule ; not by law and the appliances of au- 
thority, but by sympathy, accord, unity of sentiment and 
affection. Such is the divine programme ; and its consum- 



PUBLIC OPINION. 205 



mation will be the glorification of God and the good for- 
ever. 

On this general idea allow me two remarks: First, every 
real improvement in society is an approximation to this 
order; the final culmination is yet distant and invisible; 
nevertheless, the progress hopeful and the end attainable. 
Lower standards of judgment and action than those the Bi- 
ble proposes may be adopted ; still, if conformity to them lifts 
man up from his debasement to a higher plane, and thus 
brings him nearer to truth and under its directer ray, the 
whole movement is an aspiration kindled by some breathings 
of our ancient hope or some influence of that "light which 
lighteth every man that cometh into the world " It is our 
nature seeking the chief good under the unavowed, unsus- 
pected inspiration of the Almighty, erring perhajDS in the dim- 
ness of its light, yet struggling after freedom and perfection. 

The second remark is that the power and efficiency of 
opinion, sentiment — whether good or bad, right or wrong, 
supported by the holy or the profane — is to be accounted 
for by the fact that in either case our nature responds to a 
law of our being — the law of sympathy and control, mind 
acting upon mind, heart upon heart, according to taste and 
education, morality and constitutional proclivities. 

This idea, however, is not to be interpreted and under- 
stood as though there were a law so universal and control- 
ling as to abate in the slightest measure our personal respon- 
sibility, or even to constitute an apology for errors of opin- 
ion or practice. Whatever may be said of circumstances, 
education, company, neither nor all together possess any com- 
pulsory power. They can at best but persuade, entice. 
The human will is free, sovereign in its prerogative — can 
decree. Every agent stands upon the foundation of his 
own spontaneity, and is responsible to government and to 
God. The fair inference from the doctrine is that it fur- 



20G BISHOP PIERCE'S SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

nishes both argument and motive for circumspection amid 
danger and for stern resistance to evil, no matter -who abets 
or what may follow. To stand up against a multitude, or 
even a class, a mere clique, is hard work — almost impossi- 
ble for some people — and demands great moral courage in 
all. Such are the ramifications of society, and such the 
infirmities of human beings, that under the wisest teach- 
ings and the most imperious claims of virtue and right, 
melancholy examples will occur of weakness and subserv- 
iency; but these only constitute beacons to admonish, and 
not instances to alarm or discourage. 

But the question very naturally arises, What is that 
subtle, mysterious, potent element we call opinion — public 
opinion? Is it the opinion of one or more leading minds? 
of a class — the rich, the great, the titled? of the majority 
of the people? Is the press its exponent? or does it find 
embodiment and expression in the sermon, the lecture, the 
oration? or is it the silent, unuttered conviction of the mul- 
titude, indicating its existence not by speech, but by action? 
Who shall answer these questions definitely, satisfactorily? 
Perhaps in a general discussion of the subject no direct 
answer can be given. If from the world of opinions a dis- 
tinct selection were made and the inquiry put, an astute 
observer might write a biography of it, its parentage, prog- 
ress, and dominion. Each opinion, like each action, has 
its peculiarities of circumstance, relation, and result; and 
he who is called on to adjudge and define must know all 
that qualifies the one and the other. Indeed, it is impossi- 
ble to give a precise answer to a general question. In fact, 
what is commonly called public opinion is an exceedingly 
complicated affair, often doubtful in its origin, unintelligi- 
ble in its combinations, and very dubious in its range. It 
is sometimes assumed to serve a purpose when it does not 
exist at all, and very often is magnified as a pretext to in- 



PUBLIC OPINION. 207 



timidate opposition or as a vindication of a reprobated ac- 
tion. It is complex as Ezekiel's vision of the wheels, but 
without the intelligent eyes ever looking right on to a given 
result — tangled in its involutions, revolving, tumultuous, 
indeterminate; and -whether it will end in chaos or crea- 
tion is the problem in process of solution. It is very often 
a perfect personification of demagogism, itself a weather- 
cock, varying with every wind that blows — to one thing 
steady never. With the crude materials of society — the 
plastic, nebulous elements always abundant, and always 
ready for experiment — a dexterous manipulator may give 
them turn, shape, organization, realize any ideal, appropri- 
ate to any destiny. The easiest thing in the world is to 
form a public sentiment when a vice which many love to 
indulge is to be countenanced, or when it becomes the 
interest of a man or a party to put down another for par- 
ticular purposes. Under the institutions of our country, 
and because of the diverse views of the people as to legis- 
lative policy, we sometimes have two public opinions, each 
rampant as a bull of Bashan ; and when they meet in con- 
flict the rage and roar, and din and dust, are terrible; and, 
as each side tells us, the life of the country is the guerdon 
of the battle. But the country survives, whichever way the 
battle goes. Communities, whatever their mistakes, pas- 
sions, or conflicts, never destroy themselves by direct inten- 
tion ; and in the collision of ideas about a common interest, 
precious alike to all, there is enough of truth in either 
theory to neutralize the evils prophesied by the other. It 
is not, however, with party policies, national sentiments, 
statecraft, as these operate upon the public mind, that I 
propose to deal so much as with the local and social phases 
of the subject. 

And first let me say that among the most powerful and 
formative specimens of opinion, as they affect individual 



208 BISHOP PIERCE'S SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

character, and through individuals society itself, is what I 
wijl call a fireside sentiment, household notions, domestic 
ideas, mother's views, father's doctrines, wrought up by affin- 
ity and natural selection into systems of thought and judg- 
ment. The family is the embryo of what we call society — 
the first form of government, and still the fountain of au- 
thority and influence. ISTow, while among each class — the 
religious, the moral, the worldly, the profane — there may 
be a general correspondence of the ideas natural to the re- 
lation, yet in each one there is some modification or addi- 
tion or omission which determines its family opinion and 
marks the character of its subjects. This view limits pub- 
lic opinion in its origin to a very narrow sphere, and a half- 
score would be the census of its first adherents. But as the 
Father of Waters — disemboguing its mighty current by many 
mouths after its flow of several thousand miles into the 
Gulf of Mexico — may be traced back to a mountain-spring, 
so this little fountain, bubbling up in some sequestered spot, 
may be, often is, the head of a river of influence that may 
color the ocean into which it flows. Springs feed rivers, 
sparks kindle conflagrations, and the mightiest results have 
very insignificant beginnings. Sure as we live, in the homes 
of the people are to be found the motive-elements that give 
shape to character and destiny to the country. These in- 
fluences are overlooked, underrated, because they are silent, 
retired from observation. We are struck by the public, 
sudden, startling occasions which seem to furnish at once 
motive and development to character. But the causes which 
produce these effects are anterior to the occasions which bring 
them into action. All the possibilities of life, after its kind, 
are contained in the seed and in the laboratory of nature; 
by occult processes the work of germination begins, and the 
outgrowth in form, flower, and fruit is but the development 
of unseen causes and powers below. The lightning dazzles 



PUBLIC OPINION. 209 



and commands attention by its lurid flash and its rapid 
motion ; while the blessed sunshine, because of its common- 
ness and its quiet, noiseless descent, awakens no notice ; but 
it is the bath which gladdens the earth with light and cov- 
ers hill and dale with charms. The red bolt which cleaves 
the yielding air, and is followed by the booming thunder, 
may rend the trees of the forest and make the solid ground 
to quiver, but this power is incidental — is seldom exerted, 
and is always to be dreaded. The effect too is local. The 
soundless sunbeam shines everywhere, nourishing vegeta- 
tion, painting the flowers, making the waters sparkle, the 
fruits to ripen, and filling the world with food and gladness. 
In like manner — remote from markets and highways, from 
court-yards and hustings — influences soft but mighty, gentle 
but creative, are always at work on minds and hearts, form- 
ing tastes, sentiments, convictions; determining modes of 
thought, creating standards of judgment, and organizing 
systems — at least in their elements — destined to disturb or 
bless society, and, it may be, to convulse or fraternize the 
world. 

In the same line of thought, I may say there is a con- 
ventional opinion among all the professions, all the grades, 
and all the ages of society. The lawyers are a community 
with some peculiar ideas, professional idiosyncrasies; so 
with the doctors, so with the preachers, so with the repre- 
sentatives of each of the mechanic arts. These ideas may 
be right or wrong, hurtful or beneficial ; nevertheless they 
are not restricted to the parties who avow them, but, ex- 
tending outward, contribute no little to that public opinion 
which embraces all classes among its friends and adherents. 
The older people too of a village or neighborhood often 
have a set of notions very influential upon themselves and 
upon their judgment of others. Young people — and espe- 
cially young men — from a variety of causes, such as equal- 
14 



210 BISHOP PIERCE'S SERMONS AXD ADDRESSES. 

ity of condition, similarity of tastes and pursuits, and espe- 
cially inclinations toward the same vices — fall naturally 
into associations where, without formal rules or any thing 
like positive preconcert, opinions obtain authoritative as 
law, as despotic as tyranny itself. Now, all these in their 
respective spheres enter as elements into the composition of 
that very undefinable thing which, in its most comprehen- 
sive sense, w T e call public opinion. In other words, that 
thing which in all these classes is a law of action, a rule of 
judgment, a power or representative of a power to be 
feared and conciliated. As currents of water are diverted 
by pebbles as well as by ledges and bowlders, so influences, 
insignificant and incidental, come in to modify, dilute, or 
neutralize popular sentiment, or to change its form, direc- 
tion, or result. So that, after all, opinion is the resultant 
of a very strange composition of forces. But as feeble, at- 
tenuated threads by combinations and by twist may form a 
cord, a rope, a cable, so any one of these forces may be 
weak as the filaments of a spider's web, but all of them in 
aggregation may bind the strongest in helpless bondage. 

The combinations are often fortuitous. The issue might 
be one thing but for the modifications which come of early ed- 
ucation, from fireside prejudices. It might be another thing 
but for professional interference, or something essentially dif- 
ferent from either but for the old people or the young people. 
And after all, but for mutual antipathies among all these, some 
undefined dread, some ghostly apprehensions reciprocally 
acting on all the parties, they would all conspire and agree 
to make yet something else of it. Very often the outspoken 
boldness of one man arrests the drift of the public mind, 
revolutionizes the thoughts of a community, and constructs 
out of the hazy, nebulous mass of ideas a new creation. In 
all these cases many persons would like to see a change, 
but, in deference to what they consider public judgment, are 



PUBLIC OPINION, 211 



afraid to say so ; and when one is bold enough to take the 
initiative and give utterance to what he thinks, he consti- 
tutes a rallying-point around which the half-formed, cha- 
otic convictions and sentiments of a whole community clus- 
ter and revolve. Such a man is often credited with exert- 
ing an influence which really never belonged to him. No 
man's private convictions are altered. Every one thought 
and felt in their souls as they do now under their apparent 
change. They all stood shivering upon one bank and 
wished they were upon the other side, and he, a little bolder 
or more adventurous, broke the ice and led the way, and in 
they all rushed and floundered across. Such men are im- 
portant to the world — not because they are particularly 
great or wise or good, not because they are powerful from 
their position or services, but from their peculiar organiza- 
tion they will often do what wiser men fear to attempt. 
Some are gifted with a happy infirmity of the reasoning 
faculty, and through the pred minance of hope and the 
impulses of enthusiasm are blind to the real difficulties of 
an enterprise, and so venture and win, while the broad 
views and sober calculations of the timid philosopher lock 
him up in " masterly inactivity." The latter may reason 
well, and logic, precedent, and authority may all be on his 
side; the other, with less foresight, seeing no hazard, yields 
to his imaginative power and impulse, acts promptly, and 
success gives him eclat. Failure would have stigmatized 
him as a fool ; and fail he would, but that every one, obey- 
ing his own convictions, under cover of a bold example, 
seems to adopt him as a guide. He is but. a pioneer to re- 
gions where others meant to go as soon as the way was 
opened. 

Now, this subtle, intangible, Protean something exerts an 
incalculable influence for weal or woe on individuals and 
society. It makes or repeals a law, relaxes or executes it, 



212 bishop pierce's sermons axd addresses. 

and sways the scepter of an absolute dominion. The em- 
bodiment of a nation's ideas, it is practical legislation. A 
despot, its prescriptions annul existing statutes, and, antici- 
pating formal enactments, its decree is final and conclusive. 
A stupid idol, the multitude bow in reverence at its shrine. 
£so matter whether the image on the plains of Dura be 
gold or brass, iron or clay, the people come with sackbut, 
psaltery, and harp to chant their devotions and present 
their festal offerings. Blind to the vanity and absurdity 
of this degrading domination, which fetters intellect, fore- 
stalls judgment, and exacts an unreasoning obedience, very 
few are brave enough to assert a manly, dignified inde- 
pendence. Although there is a vast difference between an 
ostentatious singularity, an arrogant, self-willed opposition, 
and a sedulous, obsequious, punctilious conformity, yet most 
people prefer the latter, albeit it involves the loss of self- 
respect, the sacrifice of individuality, and merges all that is 
characteristic and distinctive and personal and heroic in 
assimilation and subjection to this many-headed god. It is 
one of the evils incident to what we call a high civilization 
— the vaguest, most indefinite, plastic word in our language 
— that it has but one matrix in which to cast the endless 
vanities of mind, temperament, and proclivities which nat- 
ure offers to her molding hand. Arbitrary, stereotyped, 
iron-cast in her processes, the result upon all who yield im- 
plicitly to its manipulations is a sort of social self-annihila- 
tion, and the substitution of an artificial personality, moving 
about in prim propriety and mechanical exactitude ; pinks 
of perfection without freshness or fragrance ; human autom- 
otons acted on by external forces ; neither men nor women 
as God intended them to be — natural, free, individualized 
— but slaves in whom the will has abdicated in favor of 
that mythical entity called "society" "I must do as the 
world does " is a base, cowardly, unmanly, godless maxim. 



PUBLIC OP IN I OX. 213 

Yet many avow it, and glory in their shame. Many more 
practically adopt it who in theory denounce and repudiate 
it. 

"The world" is a denomination for a system of ideas, 
customs, modes, and fashions, sometimes immoral— often 
silly — but to those who recognize its dominion no discrim- 
ination is allowed. Unswerving fidelity is the condition 
of citizenship, and disloyalty, even in favor of truth and 
righteousness, the signal of expatriation. Young people 
of both sexes seem to cherish a sort of conscience, a relig- 
ious reverence of this absurd, illegitimate authority. They 
dare not think for themselves any further than to study the 
dictates and watch the movements of this dread sovereign. 
In the history of tyrants there is none whose police is so 
universal, whose espionage is so minute, whose dominion is 
so perfect. He takes charge of us and ours — our wives 
and children, our manners and ur equipage, our dress and 
our habitations. And strange to tell, the more ridiculous 
his decrees the more popular they are, and those who suffer 
most by his impositions are his most earnest devotees. Per- 
haps stranger still, fickleness in his legislation is an element 
of power and perpetuity. Like Proteus in his changes, 
and like Jupiter in his dominion, his government is strength- 
ened by revolution and his authority consummated by de- 
basement. At once a demagogue and a despot, he cajoles 
by flattery and reigns by terror. Sometimes he announces 
a platform and requires the faithful to swear that his most 
dubious terms are clear as sunbeams, and his most unmean- 
ing generalities precise, specific, proverbial ; and they obey 
him. Sometimes he puts forth a man as his type and rep- 
resentative, and then woe to the luckless wight who does 
not lift his beaver and do obeisance! Again, he enunciates 
a doctrine false, foolish, long hated, often indignantly re- 
jected. No matter; his decree obliterates the past, con- 



214 bishop pierce's sermons and addresses. 

founds memory, sanctifies inconsistency, converts heresy into 
truth, somersaults into patriotism, and transforms treason 
into statesmanship. 

Wearied with the affairs of empire, at another time he 
comes down from the cabinet of princes and the halls of 
legislation and goes forth to regulate the tailors and hatters, 
mantua-makers and milliners. At his nod fur gives place 
to felt or silk, and hats grow tall and hard and sleek; coats 
hang in medias res — half-way between swallow-tails and 
roundabouts. The precocious boy, donning man's apparel, 
visits the ladies as a gallant before the time of life when his 
father first wore shoes. Bonnets dwarf at his command, 
till naught is left save a tiny frame — faint memorial of 
things that were. Starch resigns to hoops, and the miss's 
sleeves grow wide as her grandmother's skirts, and all the 
fair sisterhood deformed by pads and puffs ; bustle and Gre- 
cian-bends have become the pegs on which illicit fashion 
hangs in fantastic forms her wares and merchandise. But 
no folly disgusts, no innovation revolts. All the giddy 
beaux and flaunting beauties of the land vie with each 
other in admiration of all the silly, senseless metamorphoses 
of this stupid Baal. It has been said that ridicule is the 
test of truth. It may be; I doubt it. Certainly it seldom 
dethrones error or emancipates the human mind from the 
thralldom of fashion, whether it relates to dress or taste or 
opinion. The philosopher may argue, the cynic may sneer, 
the preacher condemn, and the wise and sober remonstrate 
— the devotees of the reigning order laugh at the old fogies, 
and rush on with their follies, rejoicing in their progress 
and enlightenment. 

The same pernicious subjugation to this arbitrary, irre- 
sponsible power exhibits itself in the sphere of morals and 
social life. It is not more real in villages than in cities, but 
sometimes is more apparent because the field of vision is 



PUBLIC OPINION, 215 



more limited. lis effects are deplorable. A vicious senti- 
ment, if once inaugurated and allowed to form its associa- 
tions, is a pestilence in darkness and a destruction at noon- 
day. Like poisonous miasma in the atmosphere, it cannot 
be neutralized by dilution. To expel and purify there must 
be a storm of public indignation. Allowed to exist and to 
spread its enticements for the young, it grows cunning in 
its evasions of parental authority, its deceptions and hy- 
pocrisies, until, indurated in the process of depravation, it 
becomes bold, daring, reckless, defiant ; and when the spirit 
of insubordination and irreverence has waxed strong, self- 
respect and right estimate of character decline, and then 
all regard for public opinion — outside of the polluted circle 
to which these degenerate youths belong — vanishes away, 
and the miserable victims of this corrupt and corrupting 
combination go from bad to worse, from improprieties to 
grave offenses, and at last from vice to crime. Betrayed 
by specious sentiment, encouraged by companionship, flat- 
tered by commendation, and emboldened by example, these 
parties to evil practices join hand in hand, sustain each 
other, and expedite the travel to moral ruin. 

These things always go beyond the design of the original 
movers. The social hour, with its glad feelings, its unsus- 
pecting confidence, is the tempter's opportunity — the festal 
cup the instrument, and the hilarious animation of the 
youthful heart the ally of the fatal foe. Under these cir- 
cumstances friendships are formed, familiarity ensues, and 
congeniality of sentiments and pursuits engenders tastes, 
maxims of conduct, habits of life potent, bad, inexorable. 
It is a singular development in these little communities that 
while the members claim the largest liberty, and boast them- 
selves of their independence, they are the veriest serfs and 
slaves, never daring to resist the law of the company, and, 
while glorifying freedom of opinion, scourge with scorn every 



216 BISHOP PIERCE'S SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

individual of the class who ventures to think for himself. 
The poor fellow who, wearied with his bondage, would fain 
restore himself to the rights of a free agent and the dignity 
of a free man is mercilessly pelted with reproaches, gibes, 
and sneers. The only spirit in the throng brave enough to 
avow his respect for virtue, and his desire to return to it, 
is denounced by the real dastards; and he is doomed to 
struggle with himself and with them if he triumphs in his 
reformation. 

All clubs and combinations for the patronage of vice 
should be shunned even as the upas-tree. The grave, the 
moral, and the good ought to set themselves against evil 
even in its incipiency, if they would guard the young and 
protect themselves. The current reputation of well-nigh 
every place is derived from the worst people in it, save 
where they are such an inconsiderable fraction as to be 
overawed by the public opinion of the larger and better 
portion. The reason for this is be found in the fact that 
vice is bold, brazen, intrusive; parades itself in hotels and 
public places, glories in notoriety. Every traveler and pass- 
ing stranger sees and hears, and, reporting as he goes, blasts 
the place with an evil name. Parents suffer in this way by 
imputation. Churches are charged with inefficiency, and 
the public guardians, the officers of the law, and the friends 
of order are sometimes denounced as too base to care or too 
timid to interfere. 

Whether, therefore, we consult our own respectability, 
peace, and happiness, the reputation of the place in which 
we live, or the security of the rising generation from the 
snares and gins of the profane and corrupt, from the serf- 
dom of a bound and fettered spirit, or the wildness and de- 
bauchery of dissolute sentiments and habits — all nursed and 
nourished by banded companionship — let us see to it that we 
furnish the means of knowledge, enlightenment, and eleva- 



PUBLIC OPINION. 217 



tion; diffuse just views of character, influence, and social 
merit, and secure such emplovments, recreations, and pleas- 
ures as shall forestall the evil-thinkers and the evil-doers, 
and bring even them up to the nobler walks of culture, 
truth, and purity. 



Qiiist and Him MM 



"But I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus 
Christ, and him crucified." (1 Cor. ii. 2.) 

IT is a serious question what subject is best suited to an 
audience and an occasion like this. Is a commencement 
sermon a mere compliment to Christianity as a religion 
recognized in the principles of our Government and by the 
great body of our citizens? Do we by religious discourses 
and devotional services simply propose to dignify the exer- 
cises which are to follow? or is the reason for it to be found 
in the relation of man to God, and in the evident need of 
religious influence and divine aid in the responsible duty of 
education, the development of mind, the promotion of char- 
acter, the preparation of the young for honorable citizen- 
ship? This, as I understand it, is not a ceremony without 
reverence or heart or object, but the homage of faith in 
God and his revelation, a formal acknowledgment of our 
dependence upon the principles, motives, and obligations 
of our holy religion for the achievements of the past, the 
progress of the present, and the precious hopes of the future. 
I have chosen a theme which contains directly or impliedly 
all the doctrines and precepts, the admonitions and prom- 
ises, of the Bible. Christ and him crucified is the common 
nucleus around which gather all the truths of revealed 
religion — every thing distinctive and peculiar in the Chris- 
tian scheme. 

*A Commencement Sermon before the University of Georgia, 
Athens, Ga. — Editor. 

(21S) 



CHRIST AND HIM CRUCIFIED. 219 

Very weighty reasons must have influenced the apostle to 
the utterance of a resolution so decided and, in the judg- 
ment of the world, so singular. The gospel found the Co- 
rinthians immersed in vice, and devoted with an idolatrous 
attachment to the subtle philosophy and the artificial elo- 
quence of the Greeks. They had their masters in each of 
these departments, who attracted crowds of admiring pu- 
pils, and as rivals were sustained and cheered in their com- 
petition for intellectual fame by their respective followers. 
Even after their professed reception of Christianity they 
clung with fond tenacity to the wisdom of words, valued 
to excess miraculous gifts, boasted of their attainments in 
knowledge, and sought in the preachers of the gospel the 
same attributes they had been accustomed to admire in their 
heathen teachers. Hence, there were divisions; the Church 
was rent with unhallowed contentions. Each party had its 
leader who was applauded for his proficiency in the rules 
of reasoning or his skill in the artifices of a studied rhet- 
oric; and in the heat and acrimony of their debates they 
assumed that the success of the gospel depended upon the 
decorations with which it was recommended to the world. 
They did not object to the substance of Paul's preaching — 
for they were fond of new things — but to the manner. 
They demanded more refinement in delivery, conformity to 
the prevailing tastes, the popular standard. They were not 
averse to hearing the principles of the faith, but wished 
them mixed with wisdom of words. Abstruse themes, phil- 
osophic discussions — these were the fashion, the rage, the 
demand of the times. Paul was in a dilemma. He must 
yield to their taste or lose his popularity. He does not hes- 
itate. To correct their errors and humble their pride, he 
reproves their party zeal, their antipathies and predilec- 
tions, and teaches that the gospel achieves its success by a 
divine influence, and pours contempt upon those distinc- 



220 BISHOP PIERCE'S SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

tions by which the hearts of the Corinthians had been in- 
flated. Atonement for sin by the death of Christ was the 
apostle's great theme, and this was incapable of embellish- 
ment. It was too awful for the drapery of a gorgeous rhet- 
oric, too simple for the arts and adornments of a dramatic 
oratory. This bold announcement was not the splenetic 
outburst of passion provoked by the folly of the people, nor 
the self-will of a strong man delighting in antagonism and 
contrariness, but was the conviction derived from revela- 
tion, experience, and his high commission to preach to the 
Gentiles. No other knowledge could compare in impor- 
tance with this; no other knowledge was saving but this. 
The knowledge of Christ is the highest science, the most 
reliable, the most enduring. 

The oifense of the cross is coeval with its proclamation, 
and constitutes one of the anomalous phases of the human 
mind. A preacher may discourse of the unity of the di- 
vine nature, on God's universal providence, on the immuta- 
ble distinctions of right and wrong, on the equity of the 
golden rule, or even on man's accountability to the God 
who made him, and men will listen with approbation; but 
the moment he speaks of atonement, of sacrifice for sin, 
salvation through the merit of a Mediator, the pride of in- 
tellect bristles in indignation, and the venom of the heart 
spouts and spits in unappeasable rage. 

But let us consider the meaning of the peculiar expres- 
sion, "Christ, and him crucified." We who believe in the 
doctrine of atonement interpret the phrase as affirming not 
the fact of the crucifixion, but a sacrifice for sin and faith 
in it as necessary to salvation. Others who deny atonement 
think that the apostle merely announces the fact — a mar- 
velous event in the history of a nation. Yet others, who 
claim for themselves the high distinction of a rational Chris- 
tianity, construe the passage as teaching that Christ died a 



CHRIST AND HIM CRUCIFIED. 221 

witness to the truth, was a good man and a martyr. Script- 
ure is the best interpreter of Scripture, and the apostle's 
own explanation determines his meaning beyond mistake. 
He says (1 Cor. i. 23): "We preach Christ crucified, unto 
the Jews a stumbling-block." Was it the fact? They did 
not deny it ; they did not doubt it ; they acknowledged it ; 
they gloried in it; it was their boast. How, then, could 
they stumble at it, be offended by it? Preposterous con- 
struction! We preach Christ crucified, unto the Greeks 
foolishness. How? Why? Was it a strange thing with 
them for a moral teacher to be put to death ? Had they 
forgotten Socrates and the hemlock? Nay, verily. Many 
of his disciples remained, still fond of their Master and his 
sayings. Many of their own great men had perished by 
the popular verdict. Every form of death decreed by the 
courts or the mob was familiar to them. There w T as noth- 
ing incredible in Paul's statement considered as an historic 
fact. 

Again, on their low construction : How was the power of 
God manifested? When, how did Omnipotence intervene? 
The best of men was dying ; was divine power summoned 
to the rescue? If yea, then it was baffled, not glorified. 
"Come down from the cross!" w T as the cry of the mob. 
Power was tortured, defied, laughed to scorn. The inno- 
cent, illustrious Sufferer cried : " My God ! my God ! why 
hast thou forsaken me?" Thunders of heaven, where slept 
you? Angels of God, where were you encamped? Power, 
indeed! No power here but the rage of cruel malice, the 
triumph of wicked conspiracy. 

The wisdom of God! Did wisdom plan his escape? cir- 
cumvent the subtilty of his foes? magnify itself by explod- 
ing the scheme of the Jewish council or defeating the decree 
of the Reman tribunal? Nay, verily. On this low plane 
of interpretation the death of Christ was the confound- 



222 BISHOP PIERCE'S SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 



ing of earth and heaven, the failure of prophecy, the 
eclipse of hope, the despair of the good, the triumph of 
Satan. 

But let us try the other — the orthodox— view of the 
phrase, and see how the text explains its meaning. Christ 
crucified, or salvation by faith in him, was a stumbling- 
block to the Jews because they sought justification by works ; 
they rested in the outward law, "nor knew its deep design." 
They misunderstood their own sacrifices — had lost all con- 
ception of their original intent, and had reduced the doc- 
trine of atonement to the level of a symbolic ceremonial, 
signifying nothing. They were righteous, and despised oth- 
ers. Now, to be told that their works were faulty, with- 
out merit, was on offense; and, in the blindness of their 
rage, they stumbled. This doctrine implied the impotence 
of their own Scriptures— that the very doctors of the law 
were blind leaders of the blind. It convinced them of sin, 
brought them under condemnation, and classed them with 
the common herd of sinners. Proud of their lineage, their 
temple, and their sacrifice, they were startled, outraged, by 
a statement which ranked them with the Gentile dogs round 
about them. 

The same doctrine was foolishness to the Greeks. For 
this Hebrew r missionary to come to Greece with its schools, 
its philosophy, and its literary life, and teach that they could 
hot be saved but by faith in a man crucified as a malefactor, 
rejected by his own countrymen as an impostor, was to them 
the very foolishness of folly. The story of the cross they 
? . heard with impatience, the monstrous draft upon their cre- 
dulity well-nigh exhausted their politeness, and when Paul 
mentioned the resurrection they could not stand it. The 
assembly dissolved, declaring the speaker was a babbler. 
A few promised to hear him again on these matters, but 
never did ; the rest departed, undecided whether they had 



CHRIST AND HIM CRUCIFIED. 223 

been listening to the drivelings of idiocy or the ravings of 
a madman. 

Foolishness! The Jew and the Greek still survive — 
stumbling, scoffing. But we preach Jesus and the cross as 
the vital point of the Christian religion. Take this away, 
and the gospel is nothing ; there is nothing saving in Chris- 
tianity but this ; this comprehends all. It is the wisdom of 
God, and the power of God. Wisdom is knowledge in ac- 
tion, adjusting means to ends. The term implies difficulty, 
complication — a problem to be solved. A tremendous issue 
is involved. The rights of God and the interests of the 
human race are in conflict. How can man be just with 
God? No voice comes from earth or air or sky to give the 
answer. Abashed, confounded, is the boast of every age. 
Hoary learning is dumb; silence reigns in heaven. The 
great end to be reached is the salvation of sinners. What 
are the difficulties to be overcome? They originate in the 
moral government of God. Prerogative must not over- 
ride law. This would unsettle the foundations of authority. 
Rectoral justice must be maintained. One attribute must 
not wound another. How, then, can God be just, and yet 
justify the ungodly? How can he condemn sin, and yet 
pardon the sinner? How can sin be remitted without in- 
fringing the rights and tarnishing the honor of the divine 
government? and how can the sinner be rescued from the 
wrath without a forfeiture of the divine veracity? This 
was the mysterious problem which all created intelligences 
deemed inexplicable. 

See how the cross of Christ solves the problem. Never 
was the divine law so completely vindicated and the claims 
of justice so awfully asserted as when the Lawgiver offered 
himself as a ransom. No other possible manifestation of 
the malignity and the atrocity of sin, of God's utter, un- 
compromising abhorrence of sin, could equal the sacrifice 



224 BISHOP pierce' s sermons and addresses. 

of Calvary. Holiness and justice beam from the cross in 
awful splendor, while exhaustless streams of mercy and 
grace gush out to bless the race. " Mercy and truth have 
met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each 
other." There is no relaxation of law, no encouragement 
of sin, no eclipse of the divine glory, but a fuller, brighter 
manifestation — the light of the knowledge of the glory of 
God in the face of Jesus Christ. Here, then, is wisdom — 
the wisdom of God, infinite and infallible intelligence dis- 
played in an efficient and wondrous arrangement to enlight- 
en, bless, and save a fallen, guilty world. 

It is "the power of God." The cross brings no accession 
of power to God. He was and is the Almighty, the Om- 
nipotent, but power was restrained. The power that saves 
must not be mere power defying law, crushing right, unset- 
tling the order of the universe, but power in harmony with 
government, with the claims of justice, the demands of ho- 
liness, the order and well-being of the universe. It is a 
false theology which represents the Father as vindictive, 
implacable, intent on punishment. Nay; God is love. 
Love is his name and his nature — the very essence of his 
being. God was willing to save, but law restrained power. 
The evil of sin cannot be shown save by its punishment. 
Kivers of oil, the cattle upon a thousand hills, a hecatomb 
of slaughtered angels, cannot suffice for sacrifice. The nat- 
ure that sinned must suffer. The God-man — allied to both 
parties, representing each— comes to suffer and to die. 
Christ crucified solves the problem. . 

Divine power, long pent up, broke forth like a rushing 
mighty wind, and Pentecost reports three thousand converts 
as the first signal proof of its freedom and the harbinger 
of its future achievements. 

'Twas great to speak a world from naught; 
'T was greater to redeem. 



CHRIST AND HIM CRUCIFIED. 225 

God made the world by the breath of his mouth ; he re- 
deemed it by the blood of his heart. In creation God spoke 
and nothing heard his voice, and the crude materials of the 
universe, void and without form, appeared. Power wrought 
chaos into cosmos. In the old creation power dealt with 
dead, insensible, unresisting matter; in the new it deals 
with a sentient nature full of active, hostile elements, pas- 
sions, will, affections — all dominated by an original, inerad- 
icable enmity. To create was Godlike, the work of the 
Absolute, the Infinite, the Almighty; to re-create, yet more 
divine. " The heavens declare the glory of God ; the firma- 
ment showeth his handiwork."^ But redemption reveals his 
loving heart drafting upon eternal power for a new crea- 
tion more magnificent than the whole visible universe. The 
power of God in the cross is the power to save ; power to 
illume the understanding, to awaken conscience, to subdue 
the will, exalt and refine the affections ; power to rescue a 
fallen sinner, and fit him for a destiny more glorious than 
Eden. No wonder the apostle gloried in the cross; for "it 
is the power of God unto salvation to every one that be- 
lieveth." 

The grand proposition of the text is that there is nothing 
in the world, nothing even in Christianity, saving but the 
sacrificial death of Christ. The end proposed is the salva- 
tion of sinners; and to bring this about there must be adap- 
tation between the means and the end. God might have 
filled the Bible with any other truth — scientific, political, 
or philosophical; but these, while they have their sphere 
and their use, do not touch man's moral status — his rela- 
tion to God and eternity. The Eastern caravan, laden 
with gems and gold, the spices and perfumes of every land, 
faint with dust and heat and thirst, perish if water be not 
found. The treasure cannot save them. " The world by 
wisdom knew not God ; " and all the wisdom of the world, 
15 



226 bishop pierce's sermons axd addresses. 

hoary with antiquity and cumulative by the accretions of 
the ages, cannot avail to tell how God can be just and yet 
justify the ungodly; how man may be saved from the dis- 
couragement, the terror, the despair of guilt. We must 
have "the living water." 

God has two ways of effecting his purposes — what we call 
the ordinary and extraordinary miracles, in the use of 
which he works by means or with means, or contrary to 
means, as in the case of the blind man anointed with clay 
and spittle; but in the gift of revelation the subject is pro- 
posed to our reason. The truth of the gospel must adapt 
itself to our condition. What, then, is our condition? We 
are fallen, corrupted. Every system of speculative unbe- 
lief denies or excuses the moral pravity of our nature, and 
yet undervalues and depreciates that nature itself. Any 
philosophy which classes all religions indiscriminately to- 
gether as so many stages in the religious development of 
humanity overlooks the fact I have stated, and this fact is 
the fundamental difference between true and false religion. 
Those who reject Christ and atonement deny this. Let 
them account for the evil in the world. Vice does exist ; in- 
iquity abounds ; children " go astray from the womb, speak- 
ing lies." Are these the natural outgrowth of a virtuous 
nature? Nay, verily. But we are told, by way of defense 
and explanation, all these things are the effect of example. 
O how, then, we retort, came these things to be universal? 
Surely in the long lapse of time and generations some virt- 
uous posterity of a virtuous ancestor would have been dis- 
covered. 

Do any still say that human nature is equally capable of 
good and evil? Why, then, we ask, the greater propensity 
to evil? A bad example is always more efficacious than a 
good one. Nature affiliates with the bad ; the good antag- 
onizes nature. To vield is easv ; to resist is hard. In the 



CHRIST AND HIM CRUCIFIED. 227 

one case we go with the current and the wind ; in the other 
we must breast these formidable forces. Virtue is a strug- 
gle with self and sin, the world and the devil ; vice is a pas- 
time, a sweet morsel, an enchantress, and, though her steps 
take hold on hell, she strews the path with flowers. 

Try any other doctrine — even of revelation — and there is 
a felt want, a sense of insufficiency, no foundation for con- 
fidence and hope. The religion of nature — Theism, or De- 
ism — does not provide what we need. It is an instinct of 
our nature to recognize the Author of our being ; but faith 
in God as Creator and Kuler only is not adapted to satisfy 
the religious wants of man, but rather to fill his bosom with 
profound anxieties. The moment this great truth ceases to 
be a pure abstraction, and is realized in the consciousness, 
it startles, it alarms. The thought of being in the world 
along with the God of the universe — absolute in authority, 
irresistible in power, mysterious in his attributes, purposes, 
and modes of dealing with his dependent creatures — becomes 
terrific and appalling. Consider the Almighty as the God 
of nature. The heavens and the earth declare his eternal 
power and Godhead; butcthese attributes are a source of 
terror rather than consolation. After all, inaction with its 
wonderful contrivances does not teach the benevolence of 
God. The beauties of nature, the enjoyments of life, might 
suggest the thought, but contradictory teachings repel the 
idea. Mingled with the bright, pleasant, and attractive 
are shadows, sorrows, and alarms. Convulsions rend the 
earth, famine and pestilence waste it, deserts disfigure it, 
and the sentient creatures suffer with anxiety, disappoint- 
ment, and pain, and at last sink into death, loathsome and 
forgotten. The changing phases of nature leave us to pendu- 
late between hope and fesir ; uncertain, bewildered, there is 
no rest, no satisfaction. 

The phenomena of Providence are anomalous and mi in- 



228 BISHOP PIERCE'S SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

telligible to mere faith in God — diverse, changeable, con- 
flicting, contradictory, utterly confounding the distinctions 
of friends and foes. Whether he loves us or not, Who can 
tell? 

Even the knowledge of God as revealed in his law serves 
no better purpose. Nay ; this view of God is most alarm- 
ing of all. Nature and Providence alternate in their ex- 
pression. They smile as they frown; they beam in beauty 
and blessing, or rule or rage in terror and destruction. "We 
hope as well as fear; we rejoice as well as tremble; com- 
pelled to doubt, we are yet rescued from despair. But law 
— stern, inflexible — persists in condemnation. The menace 
is perpetual. The mountain burns with fire; I dare not 
touch it. The curse reverberates in undying echoes through 
every chamber of the soul. O wretched man, let not your 
heart despair ! God in nature is God above me — dim, dis- 
tant; " clouds and darkness are round about him; " wheth- 
er he is friend or foe I cannot tell. God in providence is 
God beyond me — concealed, mysterious, doing wonders; he 
breathes in compassion and wastes in wrath — creates and 
destroys. I cannot comprehend him. God in law is God 
against me — revealing sin, threatening vengeance, anticipat- 
ing the doom of eternity. I exceedingly fear and quake. 
But God in Christ is God with me, and for me, and in me — 
my God. 

Outside of Christ and him crucified we have the moral 
law for our guide. Well, yes; there is more laAv in the 
New Testament than in the Old. The gospel does not 
teach a law less strict in its requirements ; yea, the holi- 
ness of law shines here with a brighter glow. But we 
are corrupt, guilty, unhappy. We need grace. Go to the 
criminal condemned to die and offer him law, and what can 
you say to break the bonds of his despair? It is mercy for 
which he cries. 



CHRIST AND HIM CRUCIFIED. 229 

But those who deny the sacrificial death of Christ, and 
hold him as a martyr and a witness, point us to his exam- 
ple. We cannot study it too much ; but this cannot save. 
Example is only law embodied alive in action ; and when 
the law is unwelcome so is its exhibition. Did the Jews 
profit by Christ's example? They had his gracious words, 
and hated him the more ; they witnessed his tender, forgiv- 
ing spirit, and gnashed on him with their teeth. The very 
excellence of the example provoked hate and persecution. 
The law works wrath ; so does its exemplification. 

But the gospel has brought life and immortality to light ; 
and here is motive to virtue, encouragement to hope, an an- 
tidote to death. Ah, it is delightful to contemplate the fact 
that the body shall live after death, live beyond the grave! 
But this is not the whole of the revelation. Heaven is the 
residence of the saints. But w T e are unholy. Yes, there is 
a land where the day never darkens into night, w r here the 
sky wears no cloud, where there are no griefs nor graves, 
and all is light and health and joy ; but over the arch of 
the gate is written: "There entereth here nothing that de- 
fileth." O the announcement of life awakens apprehensions 
harder to approve than the fear of annihilation ! Live for- 
ever! Under what conditions? Subject to the same in- 
firmities, wants, tendencies, aspirations; exposed to pain, 
loss, disappointment, toil ; surrounded by temptations, dan- 
gers, foes. O is there no better lot nor hope? Then death 
is better than life, and untimely birth than endless being. 

The truth as it is in Jesus is the only foundation upon 
which a scriptural and reasonable theodicy can be built. 
The atonement is exhaustive of Christian doctrine. It 
struggles for utterance in the earliest pages of inspiration. 
Through all the dispensations of religion to man it was the 
subject of a progression and gradual revelation. The his- 
tory, biographies, manifestations, and ceremonies of the 



230 BISHOP PIERCE'S SERMONS AXD ADDRESSES. 

• 

law were the swaddling-bands of an immature Christianity. 
The entire sacrificial economy of patriarchal and Levitical 
times proclaimed Christ crucified. The atonement is the 
gospel. In it the character of God is presented in the per- 
fection of every attribute. Truth, wisdom, justice, shine 
undimmed. The purity of the law is more deeply unfolded 
in the gospel than anywhere else, and its claims attested 
with thrilling emphasis in the death of Jesus. The lost 
condition of man stands awfully revealed in the tragic ex- 
hibition of Calvary. The remedy provided at such an in- 
conceivable cost is the most overwhelming statement of the 
fearful fact. But while the gospel makes the most awful 
disclosures of human corruption, it provides a remedy equal 
to the desperate emergency. Here are the safeguards of 
society, the vital forces of a high civilization, the only ele- 
ments of perpetuity in government. There is a philosophy 
which receives and lauds the gospel, but only admits it to a 
niche in the great temple of philosophy. It is one — but only 
one — subordinate idea or principle. Their religion is civil- 
ization. They only look to worldly, physical, intellectual 
results. They find man, society, the world, in disorder, but 
suppose that more skill, more wisdom, better appliances, 
will set all right. The great changes and reforms desired 
will be reached by natural agencies, the inherent forces 
wrapped up in human nature, or by the latent elements 
belonging to our modern civilization. The improvement 
of our legal codes, the multiplication of schools and news- 
papers, are prescribed as the infallible remedies for our 
moral and political disorders. It is a favorite maxim with 
our public men that when the lights of education and knowl- 
edge shall be universally enjoyed then will our liberties be 
founded upon a rock, and the permanence of our happy 
form of government secured against all the accidents of 
time. Alas! the normal forces of human nature are prone 



CHRIS 1 AND HIM CRUCIFIED. 231 

to evil, not to good. The tendencies of society develop coi> 
ruption, not sanctification. It has been thus with every 
type of civilization the world over, and must be to the end 
of time. If history attests any fact, it is that modern civil- 
ization, with all its material aggrandizements, its conven- 
iences of art and science, the magnitude of its architectural 
inventions and constructions, if divorced from an evangel- 
ical faith, will be involved in as absolute hopelessness as the 
proud attainments of Nineveh and Babylon, of Greece and 
Rome. 



Pauls (Sharge to the Elders in Epfesus 

(a conference sermon.) 



"Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the 
which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the Church 
of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood." (Acts xx. 
28.) 

THE Christian ministry is a divine expedient for the 
improvement of mankind, an ordinance of God de- 
vised by his wisdom and supported by his authority. 
It is a vocation which, as compared with professions merely 
human in their origin, is marked by several distinguishing 
characteristics. The dignity and importance of it are to be 
measured — not by the glitter of its external accompani- 
ments, but by the grandeur and duration of its conse- 
quences. He who magnifies his office by just apprehen- 
sions of its attributes, instead of exaltation and conceit, 
cherishes the deepest convictions of his defects and utter 
insufficiency. 

From the remotest antiquity, among all civilized nations, 
there has been a class of men who devoted themselves to the 
preservation, increase, and transmission of knowledge. Their 
speculations were subtle, their arguments logical, their max- 
ims respectable. But to whom did they address themselves? 
To selected friends, to admiring pupils, to privileged orders. 
Never did they appear in public except on special occasions, 
when personal vanity was to be gratified by the acquisition 
of fame. The gospel preacher is the herald of glad tidings 
to all people 1 — people of every color, clime, and condition — 
(232) 



PAULS CHARGE TO THE ELDERS IN EPHESUS. 233 

the man of the city, the field, and the woods; the poor, the 
sick, the desperate, the beggar, the convict, and the slave. 

The priests of heathen religions were appointed to con- 
duct the pomp of lustrations and sacrifices, to perform au- 
gust and delusive ceremonies, to mutter mystic sentences 
"and unintelligible oracles. The Christain minister is or- 
dained for the inculcation of truth . and to watch for souls 
as one that must give account. The authority of his mes- 
sage does not depend upon pedantic refinement of thought, 
upon subtlety of reasoning, or the turgid exaggerations of 
pompous eloquence. Nor does he strut before the public 
gaze in gorgeous vestments, holding men's j^ersons in admi- 
ration because of advantage; or claim acceptance, prophe- 
sying smooth things, to court the favor of the vain and 
worldly; but like the angel of the apocalypse standing in 
the sun, he is hidden by the splendor of the revelations 
which he unfolds — the excellent glory of Him whose truth 
he delivers. 

The disputes which have agitated the Church as the chan- 
nel through which ministerial good is conveyed, the legiti- 
mate mode of vesting it — however unfortunate in misleading 
and corrupting many incumbents of the sacred office — may 
nevertheless be considered as the concurrent suffrage of ages 
as to the divinity of its origin and its vital relation to the 
highest interests of Christianity. The assumption of those 
who, with great swelling words of vanity, arrogate to them- 
selves peculiar, exclusive rights and privileges, proceeds 
upon the monstrous idea that God transferred, parted with, 
all his original rights in the premises, and delegated to the 
so-called apostolic successors the power to perpetuate the 
Christian ministry. It is a suggestive fact — a fact that an- 
swers all theories — that the presumption of these pretend- 
ers to a divine prerogative have met with a signal rebuke 
in the failure of their efforts to achieve the great end of 



234 bishop pierce's sebmoxs axd addbesses. 

gospel preaching — the salvation of souls. They labor in a 
field concerning which God seems to have commanded the 
" clouds that they rain not upon it." The grace they prom- 
ise to convey is no more grace. Its ancient virtue has been 
lost in its passage through the famous historic aqueducts 
along which we are told it flows; and now, diluted and neu- 
tralized, it has become another thing, and its name is hum- 
bug. Conscious of their weakness, the propagandists of this 
pretentious organization have turned their efforts of late 
into a new channel, and despairing of the conversion of sin- 
ners — the chief work of a true gospel preacher — have con- 
fined themselves to the seduction of the faithful. Entering 
into better people's labors, they beguile unstable souls and 
lead captive silly disciples with social bribes and unchris- 
tian indulgences. Xot very apostolic that! It was the 
glory of St. Paul that he did not build upon another man's 
foundation, nor boast in another man's line of things made 
ready to his hand. 

I submit to my brethren in the ministry whether the 
time has not come — fully come — when we should no longer 
tamely and silently endure the flippant charge that we are 
irregular, uncanonical, without ecclesiastical authority. Fi- 
delity to souls, loyalty to our Lord and Master, demands 
that we speak out ; that we rebuke, not with mincing words 
and bated breath, but boldly, sternly, without fear or favor, 
the arrogant exclusiveness which sets up a certain Episco- 
pal sect as "the Church," and ranks Methodism as a "Soci- 
ety," without clergy or sacraments. I am disgusted with 
this flummery, this unmitigated nonsense. 

If there be any thing in the apostolical succession, it must 
be because God called the apostles to preach the gospel ; then 
every man called of God to preach is in the succession in the 
only sense in which there is any sense in it. Yes, brethren, 
our ministry is not human, but divine ; not derivative, but 



Paul's charge to the elders in epiiesus. 235 

original. It did not come from Peter or Paul, popes or 
bishops, Wesley or Asbury, but from God out of heaven. 
The Lord Jesus Christ, the great Head of the Church, 
" counted us worthy, putting us into the ministry." Let 
those who prefer it boast themselves of lineal descent, of 
mythical legitimacy, and canonize the shadows and relics 
of the dead past, the hoary treasures of the elder time. 
They are welcome to the tombs and bones of antiquity, to 
the rubbish of history afloat upon the tide of time, and all 
the self-complacent deceptions by which they feed their van- 
ity and make merchandise of souls. The signature of God 
Almighty authenticates our ministry. A converted soul, a 
living faith, a working zeal, a spiritual, growing Church — 
these are our credentials. A revival of pure and undefiled 
religion, where souls are born unto God, is a more potent 
indorsement than the dictum of a council; the baptism of 
the Spirit a higher qualification than canonical robes or 
episcopal manipulations; a divine call, and earnest, self-de- 
nying obedience to it, is a richer endowment, a holier invest- 
iture, than all ecclesiastical warrants, adjuncts, or parch- 
ments. Without these no ministry is legitimate, and with 
them we may defy falsehood and persecution, the artifice of 
men and the malice of Satan. 

These remarks have been made, not by way of assault, but 
defense; not to disparage others, but to rebuke their claims, 
their insulting, insufferable arrogance, and to exalt and con- 
firm my fellow-laborers in the ministry in their conceptions 
of duty, independence, and obligation. I have followed the 
example of the great apostle to the Gentiles, who, in his 
farewell address at Miletus to the elders of Ephesus, indi- 
cated his ministry, his doctrine and practice, and sought to 
confirm them against the insinuations and devices of those 
who, after his departure, would, enter among them speaking 
perverse things to draw away disciples after them. 



236 BISHOP PIERCE'S SERMONS AXD ADDRESSES. 

As a Church, as a body of ministers, we set up no factitious 
claims to public confidence and favor. While with due 
self-respect we insist that "socially we are as genteel as the 
best, we do not profess or desire to lead the ton and to be 
counted as the elite of the fashionable world. Nor do we 
court the giddy by patronizing their follies, but rather re- 
prove and denounce them. Nor do we substitute worship 
for preaching, nor "church music" for praise, nor sacra- 
ments for conversion, nor liturgical dullness for religious 
solemnity. Nor do we pretend that our ministry is the 
only channel through which the grace of Christ will deign 
to flow, and that all outside of our communion are left to 
the unpromised, uncovenanted mercies of God as the dernier 
chance, the dubious, bare possibility of salvation. Sepa- 
rated from the world by profession (would to God that I 
could add by non-conformity too!), at war with its sins and 
sensual pleasures, with no special eclat of learning to justify 
pride with our association, with no architectural piles con- 
secrated by the touch and moss of years to indulge art and 
sentiment, with no popular modes to satisfy the superstitious 
and the Pharisaic, with no periodical festivals or fasts to quell 
conscience and buy impunity in wrong-doing, our only alter- 
native — if we would hold our ground and go on to prosper 
— is personal holiness, a sanctified ministry, and a devout, 
godly membership. With these prerequisites we may well 
abide comparison with others, and we can, without doubt or 
fear, stand the scrutiny of the world and the test of time. 

The Church is a compound organization, made up of 
ministers and members — distinct yet united, their obliga- 
tions reciprocal, and each essential to the integrity of the 
whole. The ministry is not only organic in the constitution 
of the Church, but it is invested by our common King and 
Head with executive functions, the right exercise of which 
is indispensable to her health, vigor, and development. The 



PAUL'S CHARGE TO THE ELDERS IN EPHESUS. 237 



priest's lips should keep knowledge, for he is teacher; but 
there must be government as well as instruction; oversight, 
discipline, training, the assignment of every man to his 
place, the active circulation of every element capable of 
usefulness, as well as sermons, lectures, and exhortations. 
Preaching, I concede, is the great instrument of doing good. 
Its importance can hardly be exaggerated as a means for 
propagating truth, for winning souls and the increase of 
numbers ; but it may be relied on too much for building up, 
for protection against the world, and the maintenance of a 
living, spiritual piety. Pardon me, my brethren, but this 
is the very point at which the Methodist ministry has broken 
down as compared with the fathers of our Zion. I have 
long been persuaded that the preachers are responsible for 
well-nigh every evil which mars the beauty or enfeebles the 
operations of Methodism. Judge me by what I say; I 
never insinuate. It is my habit to speak out. I never 
loved you more — nor indeed so much — as I do to-day. 
Your Christian manliness, your heroic endurance, your 
meek and self-denying labors under hardships, privations, 
and all the evil omens of a dark and threatening future, 
have enthroned you above all other men in my confidence 
and affection ; but I say to you : 

Let Zion's watchmen all awake, 
And take the alarm they give. 

We are not as holy as we ought to be. We have done the 
work of the Lord carelessly. We have dodged responsibil- 
ities, connived at evils in the Church, feared the rich, neg- 
lected the poor, dropped the reins of discipline, broken the 
rules we promised to keep ; w T e have been timid, distrustful, 
faint-hearted, when we ought to have been decided, bold, 
unyielding ; permitted the world and its friends to encamp 
within our territory when we should have met them at the 



238 bishop pierce's sermons axd addresses. 

border with waving sword and defiant banners and warned 
them off. By silence we have permitted people to think 
themselves religious who neglect all the relative and social 
duties of Christianity; for lack of organization and over- 
sight suffered young converts to go astray and perish in the 
face of the Bible and discipline, and contrary to both ; com- 
promised with conscience, trusting that the protracted meet- 
ing would reform the drunkards, convert the dancers, settle 
the quarrels, smooth over all difficulties ; and, when the last 
doubtful experiment has failed, consoled yourselves with the 
hope that your successor might have more nerve, wiser man- 
agement, or better luck. In all those things you did not ex- 
actly mean to do wrong, but you have blundered through false 
ideas of personal responsibility. To save time and trouble you 
have sought to lump the work, which can only be wisely done 
by attention in detail. Instead of seeking to destroy these evils 
by numerous guns of lighter caliber, you bring one mighty 
columbiad to bear, fire at long range and long intervals, giv- 
ing to the enemy time to repair damages, to intrench and re- 
cruit between every discharge. Big sermons and big meet- 
ings have their use ; we need them ; but the Avoods are thick 
with scouts and skirmishers. The emissaries of Satan and sin 
are not always embodied ; they scatter and skulk and creep. 
There are spies and deserters, and traitors too. To meet 
and circumvent all these there must be system, discipline, 
obedience. There must be instruction, warning, reproof, 
police and courts and administration. The captain of the 
Lord's host must have eyes that never sleep, hands that 
never hang down ; instant in season and out of season, he 
must "reprove, rebuke with all long-suffering and doctrine," 
"Take heed therefore." This impressive exhortation to 
the elders of Ephesus is prefaced by a coffcise, telling re- 
port of the apostle's life and labors among them, of the 
doctrines he taueht, the tenderness and assiduity of his zeal, 



Paul's charge to the elders in ephesus. 239 

and now he beseeches them to take care of the crop he had 
planted, to devote themselves to its culture, and to guard 
against the waste and ravage of enemies, whether they 
came from abroad or arose from within. The duty is com- 
pound — twofold — personal and relative: First, take heed 
to yourselves ; second, take heed to the flock, all the flock 
over which the Holy Ghost had made them overseers; 
third, feed the Church of God, which he hath purchased 
with his own blood. 

First. Take heed to yourselves. 

The qualifications for the Christian ministry are numer- 
ous. I cannot undertake to specify them all — even by 
name, much less by enlargement. If we classify them as 
intellectual and moral, Ave should embody only a general 
truth, open to extreme and vicious error on either side. 
The preacher must have a deep personal experience of the 
truth and power of Christianity, and pray earnestly for di- 
vine illumination ; but if he neglect reading, study, mental 
culture, and discipline, he is an enthusiast, vainly trusting 
that God will patronize his sloth and furnish by inspiration 
that which, in the order of nature and gospel too, can only 
come from toil. If he rely on genius, on books, on educa- 
tion, on compact argument, or on brilliant declamation — 
and there is some tendency this way — then no wonder if a 
jealous God dooms him to barrenness, and makes the rep- 
utation he sought the instrument of his discomfiture. To 
combine piety and study, knowledge and faith, preparation 
and dependence on the help of the Holy Ghost, is hard 
work — too hard for unsanctified human nature. When a 
man has read and thought, and written and argued, and 
ornamented and pruned and polished till criticism smiles 
approval — to think that such a crumpet may utter a pow- 
erless sound, that sensible people may be blind to such 
demonstrations, deaf to such appeals, is too much for the 



240 BISHOP PIERCE'S SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

pride of opinion, the conceit of mere intellect. Then again, 
such is our infirmity, and so stealthy and insidious is error, 
that we are tempted to lean upon our long service, voice, 
and experience and familiar acquaintance with truth, and 
thus the feeling of insufficiency is diluted, if not evapo- 
rated, and in spite of convictions and experiment, and even 
struggles, to the contrary, we come to our work shorn of 
our strength, and, like Samson, we say we will arise and 
go forth as at other times, and wist not that the Lord has 
departed from us. 

And now T to all this add the gravity and grandeur of the 
work we have to do — the truth of God to be proclaimed, the 
world to be reconciled to Christ, sinners to be converted, 
the Church to be sanctified — and no wonder that the Bible 
lays such stress upon simple faith, upon deep humility, upon 
self-abnegation, upon tireless zeal. Who is sufficient for 
these things? Blessed be God, none need despair! Though 
scantily endowed by nature and education, after all the 
main qualification is the gift of God. Let a man do his 
duty; prayer can command the rest. I have seen the en- 
campment of Israel panic-struck, down-hearted, ready to 
flee away; the enemies of God defiant, boastful, full of 
mockery; the old and strong and wise too much discour- 
aged to preach, and the task committed to some untrained 
stripling, all unused to the arts of this holy war, but fresh 
and strong in the simple faith of his good old father's house, 
and before his sling and stone Goliath went down, and all 
his followers fled away. 

I believe in study ; I know the value of it, both from use 
and — God forgive me ! — from the neglect of it ; but I tell you 
there is no preparation for preaching like faith in God and 
his word. 

If the Methodist ministry has lost power in the pulpit, 
I will not say -the Church is responsible for it, but it is 



PAUL'S CHARGE TO THE ELDEIiS IX EPHESUS. 241 

largely to blame for it. There was a time when our people 
judged a preacher by his fruits — the present, visible results 
of his ministry. When they spoke of a great sermon they 
did not refer to its intellectual power, but to the revival 
that followed it ; they did not quote in aesthetic admiration 
some striking metaphor, but they told who was struck down ; 
they did not compare brilliant passages, each according to 
his taste, but they commented on the consolations they had 
felt, upon the hopes which had been inspired. Every 
preacher felt that his position in the Conference depended 
upon his power, upon his usefulness — that he was to be 
measured, not by his literature, but by his sheaves; not by 
his oratory, but by the prosperity of his charge. Nowa- 
days the Church wants a preacher who can attract the 
young people, and fill Up the house; who is abreast with 
modern ideas, and will connive at all the innovations of 
those whose only idea of Church improvement is in strip- 
ping Methodism of her individuality ; who will deliver short, 
pretty orations, and not worry people about their souls and 
such things as heaven and hell and a world on fire. I 
have noticed in all the Conferences that under this class of 
men — and they are in great demand — the Church regularly 
wilts and dwindles, prayer-meetings die out, family altars 
are broken down, and the good old mellow, melting love- 
feasts that wrapped a man's soul in an air balmy as para- 
dise, and made him feel as rich as the gold of the New 
Jerusalem, are all numbered with the things that were. 

Take heed to yourselves, brethren; the Church herself 
may corrupt you by erecting false standards of merit and 
tempting you to collude with her mistakes. It is your 
business to mold the Church, not to be molded by her. She 
is committed to your oversight ; you are to be ensamples, 
shepherds, guides. Beware of the fear of man that bring- 
eth a snare. Beware also of self-love, of man-pleasing, a 
16 



242 BISHOP PIERCE'S SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

morbid sensitiveness about your reputation. " We have not 
received the Spirit of fear, but of power, of love, and of 
a sound mind." These are the elements of greatness and 
goodness too. Cherish your inheritance. Let no man take 
your crown, either by threats or promises, by flattery or per- 
secution. 

Take heed to your spirit, your doctrine, your practice. 
Your spirit must be one of self-devotement, of deep humil- 
ity. This is indispensable to personal piety, and, under the 
evangelical dispensation, is the essential furniture of him 
who serves the sanctuary. I have never known a man in 
our Conferences entertain the temptation, brood over the 
idea, that he was underrated, that his appointments are too 
humble and obscure for his claims, and that envy and jeal- 
ousy had pushed him aside, who did not decline in religious 
enjoyment, lose moral power, and, in not a few instances, 
locate and backslide. A meek and lowly spirit does not 
negotiate and hint and maneuver for promotion, but rejoices 
that it is allowed to work at all. 

Never mind yourself, brother; let yourself alone; drink 
in your Master's spirit; let duty absorb you. An angel 
sped with equal alacrity to bake a cake upon the coals for 
a fasting people as when God sent him to rescue Jerusalem 
by the slaughter of the Assyrian hosts. The honor of the 
mission was not in the work to be done, but in the source 
of the command and the obedience of the servant. Paul, 
pleading with exquisite address for the pardon of Onesi- 
mus, a fugitive slave, was as great — perhaps more lovely, 
more like his Master — as when a prisoner in chains, by the 
thunder of his eloquence, he made the. judge tremble on his 
tribunal. 

The grandeur and efficacy of gospel preaching depend 
upon the powerful exhibition of a few great truths. They 
must not be smothered by grouping around them philo- 



PAUL'S CHARGE TO THE ELDERS IN EPHESUS. 243 

sophic speculations, nor diluted by rationalistic modifica- 
tions to accommodate a carnal intellect. Announce them 
fearlessly; they contain in themselves the elements of de- 
fense and perpetuity. Instinct with the breath of the Al- 
mighty, they partake of his own immortality. Like Christ 
walking on the waters, they can stand when all else goes 
down, and when Peter is sinking can save him too. Preach 
the word. Preach Christ; preach him as though you saw 
him upon the cross and felt his blood gushing warm upon 
your soul. "Continue in them;" preach on; it is as im- 
portant to you as to your race. Preach on; it is doing 
good, and will do more. Preach on ; and thou shalt both 
save thyself and them that hear thee. 

Second. Take heed to your practice. 

You have persevered a long time, but do not remit your 
watch or dismiss your guard. O to " abstain from all ap- 
pearance of evil;" to be filled with the Spirit; to give no 
offense to Jew or Gentile, or to the Church of God; to be 
"all things to all men," not by trimming, but by adapta- 
tion ; to maintain the savor of piety like the holy oil on 
Aaron's reverend head — all this demands wisdom, watching, 
grace, prayer. You may not fall by scandalous sin, but 
you may forfeit your prestige as a preacher by vanity, by 
indolence, by covetousness. You may escape denunciation 
as a hypocrite, and yet defeat your usefulness by impru- 
dence. You may not be chargeable with filthy conversa- 
tion, and yet err by foolish talking and jesting which are 
not convenient. You may be popular with the young, the 
giddy and thoughtless, and yet sink in the confidence of 
the wise, the sober, and the aged. You must harmonize 
the companion and the preacher, the parlor and the pulpit, 
and be an example " in word, in conversation, in charity, in 
faith and purity — in all things approving yourselves as the 
servants of God, that the ministry be not blamed." 



24A 

Third. Take heed to yourselves and to all the flock of God. 

You are to feed and care for the flock, all the flock — the 
rich and the poor, the faithful and the wandering, the sheep 
and the lambs. They must be fed with sound doctrine; 
every one must have his portion in due season. We must 
seek to know them in their persons, to know them in their 
inclinations; what sins they are most in danger of, what 
temptations they are most in danger of, what duties they 
neglect. This work will demand social intercourse, private 
inspection, and public instruction. You are overseers di- 
vinely appointed — set apart by solemn ordination to teach 
and guide and govern the churches committed to your care. 
Most of you brethren preach often enough; some do not. 
Once a week in a station is far too little, either for preacher 
or people — -a compromise to keep up reputation on the one 
hand and to indulge sloth on the other of more than doubt- 
ful propriety. The sheep that are limited to an acre past- 
ure, not over juicy in its vegetation, and allowed to graze 
''thirty minutes by the watch," and then doomed to chew 
a scanty cud for a week, are not likely to fatten or to mul- 
tiply. 

Many of you are laborious pastors, visiting from house 
to house, attending Sabbath-schools, and praying with the 
sick ; but some are sadly at fault in all these things, and 
their statistics tell on them. Salaries unpaid, no increase 
of members, meager collections, and a private letter to the 
Bishop begging for a change. " We want no better preach- 
er," some of these letters say, " but we want a live man — a 
man who mixes with the people, and who will not break up 
a meeting with twenty mourners at the altar because he 
wants to go home." 

But who is faithful in the administration of discipline? 
Somehow the word "discipline" is associated offensively 
with •'•'arraignment," "judicial trial," "expulsion." This 



PAUL'S CHARGE TO THE ELDERS IN EPHESUS. 245 

will not often be necessary, and these extreme cases are the 
most seldom neglected. This is an ultimate idea; disci- 
pline includes much more. It is admonitory, preventive, 
curative. Amputation is not an inevitable sequence of 
every wound. The health of the ship is not to be preserved 
by casting every patient into the sea. Every man who 
slips is not to be harshly denounced and summarily cut off. 
No, no. How reads the book? War on the unruly, com- 
fort the feeble-minded, uphold the weak, reclaim the wan- 
dering, guard the exposed, the fallen raise, the mourner 
cheer. Reprove, rebuke with all long-suffering; do not 
threaten and abuse, scold and bluster; but in the spirit of 
meekness entreat and, if possible, restore. Find out what is 
wrong. Go talk with the delinquent ; argue w T ith him ; plead 
with love in your heart and tears in your eyes. Be prompt ; 
instant in season and out of season. Watch against the begin- 
ning of evil ; crush the egg ; stop the leak. Do not let the 
weeds go to seed. Incipient disease can be managed ; chron- 
ic maladies are incurable. A member was absent from the 
prayer-meeting last night ; hunt him up to-day and " stir up 
his pure mind by way of remembrance." The Church-meet- 
ing was poorly attended ; go round, see the absentees ; set the 
time for another; tell them you will call the roll. Study to 
make your meetings entertaining. Distribute work among the 
members; give every one something to do; 'hold them to a 
careful, rigid responsibility. See, yonder is a brother ; he is 
cold, tempted; he has just quit praying with his family; his 
conscience is sore, his thoughts are troubled. Admonish 
him, encourage him, help him to rebuild the broken altar. 
A married man joins the Church; tell him what to do, 
how to do; start him right, help him along. Let them all 
know that we cannot, will not, after proper time and effort, 
allow any man to stay with us who does not pray with his 
familv. Stewards of God's house, eive an account! Over- 



216 BISHOP PIERCE'S SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

seers of the Church of Christ, what is your report? Tax 
your memory ; look over your papers. Are you satisfied with 
your year's work ? Have you taken care of the nock — all 
the flock? Has no soul for whom Christ died received hurt, 
or hinderance by reason of your negligence? Have you 
never healed the hurt of the daughter of God's people 
slightly? Do you insist as earnestly as you ought upon 
simple, practical, experimental godliness? Do you teach 
the Church that relative duties are essential to personal 
piety? O brethren, exalt the standard of holy living! 

Preach holiness. We must have more family religion, 
household piety, parents consecrated, children taught in the 
Lord and of the Lord. This is the great want of the times. 
The tabernacle of the righteous and the temple of the Most 
High must be energized in spirit and service. The Church 
in the house must cooperate with the minister in the sanctu- 
ary. The Church and the family are divine institutions — 
related and intended to be reciprocal, mutual helps — nurs- 
ery and orchard. They flourish or decay together. The 
Church in the house is the well-spring ; the Church in the 
temple is the reservoir ; the water will stagnate or go dry 
if the fountain be sealed or the channel be clogged. When 
all our married Methodists, like Zachariah and Elizabeth, 
walk together in all the commandments and ordinances of 
the Lord blameless, their offspring may not be as John the 
Baptist, but with respect to them they will verify the Sav- 
iour's words that the " least in the kingdom of heaven is 
greater than he." If every father would say, "As for me 
and my house, w T e will serve the Lord ; " if every mother, 
like Anna, would wait upon the Lord, day and night, with 
fastings, tears, and prayers, then the Church record would 
be but a transcript of the baptismal register, and the ju- 
bilant shout of our Zion would be as the voice of many 
waters. 



Paul's charge to the elders i\ e rhesus. 247 

Fidelity to these grave and responsible duties is enforced 
by three considerations. 

First, we are ourselves set apart by solemn ordination to 
feed the Church, to guide and govern — not by constraint, 
but willingly; not by filthy lucre, but by a ready mind. 
We must not drag ourselves to our work reluctantly for 
fear of censure, but spring to it with alacrity because we 
love it and would please Him who called us. "We must not 
measure our service by our pay, nor forget the sheep in 
taking care of the fleece; but though neglected, pinched, 
hard run, work on, not counting our lives dear if we may 
but finish our course with joy. We must not lord it over 
God's heritage in proud authority with magisterial airs, nor 
wrap ourselves in unapproachable dignity, but be loving, 
gentle, condescending to men of low estate, patient toward 
all men, an ensample to all the flock, that when the Chief 
Shepherd shall come we may receive the crown of glory 
that fadeth not away. 

A second consideration is, The authority and excellence 
of Him who hath separated us unto this work, even the 
Holy Ghost. 

It is the concurrent opinion and custom of all Christian 
communities that those who minister at the altar should 
have the warrant of Almighty God and the endowment of 
the Church, the body of Christ. How grand, how awful is 
the ministry in this light! Embassadors of heaven, mouth- 
piece of God to men, stars in the right-hand of the Most 
High, the angels of the churches, commissioned by the Lord 
of heaven and earth. We may be little esteemed among 
men, and our work be regarded as a beggarly vocation, but 
we hold the highest commission known to earth. 

While the grave and awful functions of the ministry in- 
volve a distinct and peculiar responsibility, it is some relief 
to know that on this very ground we are commended to the 



248 bishop pierce's sermons and addresses. 

sympathy and kind remembrance of the Church." Our 
duties are arduous, delicate, complex. Let the Church 
pray for us. Bear in mind in your private studies as well 
as your public performances your absolute dependence on 
superior aid, and let it be your stimulus and consolation 
that the more abundantly you appropriate the benefits of 
the gospel all the more bountifully will you impart them. 
The degree of your sanctification will be the measure of 
your enjoyment, and your power with God in prayer the 
pledge of your success with men. 

Thirdly, The mysterious declaration that the Church was 
bought with the blood of God. 

We will not pause now to settle the import of this pecul- 
iar expression. Our salvation is divine in its origin, its 
priesthood, and its powers. The price confounds the arith- 
metic of earth, as it emptied heaven of its richest treasure. 
Creation is the breath of God; redemption is his blood. 
The starry heavens show forth his eternal power and God- 
head ; the gospel reveals his heart, all tenderness and love, 
His tender mercies are over all his works, and his human 
creatures the objects of his especial regard, but the Church 
is his bride and his spouse. He loved her and gave him- 
self for her. 



Bishop James Osgood Andrew* 



"A good name is better than precious ointment; and the day of 
death than the day of one's birth." ( Ecclesiastes vii. 1.) 

THE service I am called upon to perform is somewhat 
peculiar in its demands. The discourse which is to 
follow is, in the regular order of exercises, the Com- 
mencement Sermon of Emory College for the year 1871 ; 
and I am requested to embody in it a memorial of Kev. 
Osgood Andrew, late senior Bishop in the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church, South. Either service singly considered 
would be a plain duty, without embarrassment. To com- 
bine the two so as to harmonize with the interest and object 
of the occasion is a task of some difficulty. Several months 
have elapsed since our beloved and venerated friend passed 
away to the home of God and the good. Funeral-services 
have been performed by several of his colleagues in office ; 
memorial sermons have been delivered by leading ministers 
in well-nigh all the Conferences; biographical sketches, de- 
lineations of his character, reminiscences of events and inci- 
dents in his varied history, have appeared in all the papers 
of the Church and in some of the prominent periodicals of 
the country. But little, if anything, remains to be said in 
the ordinary form of funeral-commemoration. 

It is a beautiful tribute to the memory of our venerable 
brother and friend that the Church continues to repeat her 
testimony of his worth, and seeks to perpetuate the moral 

*A funeral-sermon delivered at the Commencement of Emory 
College, July 1G, 1871. 

(249) 



250 BISHOP PIERCE'S SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

influence of his life and character by sermon, by narrative, 
by description — thus expressing her gratitude to God for the 
gift of such a man, and commending his example in every 
stage of his career as a model, scriptural and safe, for the 
aged and the young. The odor of the alabaster-box of 
spikenard — very precious — with which Mary came to anoint 
her Lord did not fill the room in Simon's house till the box 
was broken ; so till death bereaved us our admiring love 
did not realize the priceless treasure in its possession ; but 
now, admonished by its loss, it inhales with delight the lin- 
gering perfume, and labors to enshrine it in everlasting 
remembrance. "A good name is better than precious oint- 
ment ; and the day of death than the day of one's birth." 
I feel aided and cheered in the work before me by the con- 
viction, derived from my knowledge of the man, that if 
Bishop Andrew were present in person, while his humility 
would disclaim every thing I may say creditable to him- 
self, yet in his soul he would approve the effort to start 
these young men aright upon the path of life, albeit the 
suggestions were derived from his own precepts, habits, and 
history. 

While yet upon the earth he was my text embodied and 
alive. A good name was his portion; he won it; he main- 
tained it; it survives him. The odor fills the land. The 
day of his death, however calamitous to the Church and to 
his friends, was to him better than the day of his birth. 
The latter introduced him to a world of labor and sorrow; 
the other to an immortality of being and of blessedness. 
His mother rejoiced when it was told her that a man-child 
was born into the world ; the angels of God shouted his 
welcome when death ushered him into their society, and 
the Saviour of sinners gave him the promised crown. 

To estimate things according to their real value is a rare 
achievement — a mental triumph very uncommon among 



BISHOP JAMES OSGOOD ANDREW. 251 

men. Yet, true wisdom consists largely in sound judgment, 
an accurate discrimination of the comparative value of ob- 
jects which stand in competition with each other; in the 
sober, steadfast choice of that which is most excellent, 
and the bestowment of proportionable care upon it; in 
the grand purpose which points unerringly in one direction, 
and always subordinates the inferior to the superior inter- 
est. Without a countervailing influence — and commonly 
in spite of it — the soul takes on the character of the ob- 
jects with which it has voluntary intercourse. If these 
objects be great and inspiring, they will have the stamp of 
greatness ; if good and ennobling, the imprint of goodness ; 
of littleness, if they be trivial ; of corruption, if they be 
base; "he that walketh with wise men shall be wise, and the 
companion of fools shall be destroyed." So likewise with 
the aims and objects of life. They impress the soul, fix its 
bent, give it shape; they determine character, conduct, and 
destiny. If the aims be manly and honorable, if the ob- 
jects be worthy and the plans be worked out consistently, 
without lapse or deviation, they will never fail to command 
public respect and confidence. Even in the absence of 
Christian motive, and when the loftiest ideal proposed is 
simply human, there is often much to admire and to love. 
But, after all that civilization and society and culture can 
do, that which is of the earth is earthy. The loftiest am- 
bition which bounds its enterprise and hope within the lim- 
its of time, whatever the theater of its exploits or the suc- 
cess of its plans, leaves its subject far below what is attain- 
able in the way of honor and fame. That is most valuable 
which is most useful. A name, notoriety, reputation, may 
come from invention, eccentricity, learning, valor, illustri- 
ous actions, but the highest types of humanity are associ- 
ated with Christianity, and are the exponents of its truth 
and power. The man of shining talents and splendid per- 



252 BISHOP PIERCE'S SEBMOXS AXD ADDRESSES. 

formances is like the glare of a comet, which, with its train 
sweeping through the heavens, will attract all eves and fill 
for awhile the papers of the land ; while the sun, in his reg- 
ular, constant circuit, giving light to the wayfarers of earth 
and shedding fertility upon our gardens and our fields, 
shines on without note or comment ; but when the flaming 
meteor is passed and is forgotten, the steady sun, unexhaust- 
ed and inexhaustible, beams and burns, creation's light and 

joy- 

A good name, in the sense of the text, implies wisdom, 
integrity, piety. These are more precious than ointment. 
Among Oriental nations ointments were counted among 
their chief treasures. Availing himself of this idea, Solo- 
mon affirms that a good name is more valuable, more desir- 
able, than all the delights of sense, all the titles of honor, 
all the profits of earth. "A man's life consisteth not in the 
abundance of the things which he possesseth." "A good 
name is rather to be chosen than great riches, and loving 
favor rather than silver and gold." The tendency of this 
materialistic, utilitarian age is to direct antagonism with 
these precepts of Eternal Wisdom. Money is the god of 
this world. In the popular creed it is the chief end of 
man. But fortunes are not often innocently made : " He 
that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent." " They 
that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into 
many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in de- 
struction and perdition." Money implies no excellence 
and confers none. What is wealth without character? 
Sumptuous misery, gilded desolation. Diligence is a duty, 
employment a privilege; but drudgery, the condition of 
accumulation, is a curse — labor and travail without fee or 
reward. By a law of the mind, as well as by the judgment 
of God, satisfaction is taken out of those things men so 
greedily seek ; their wishes outgrow their means, and sue- 



BISHOP JAMES OSGOOD ANDREW. 253 

cess is unfriendly to repose. "He that loveth silver shall 
not be satisfied with silver, nor he that loveth abundance 
with increase." There are times in every man's history 
when loving favor is better than money, and sympathy bet- 
than gold. 

" The life is more than meat, and the body than raiment." 
Our true being is the divine life within, and the noblest 
work the work we do for God. 

A good name is more precious than pleasure — the lust of 
the flesh, the lust of the eye, the pride of life. To choose 
the pleasures of earth as our highest good is debasing to our 
rational nature, subversive of all virtuous feelings and sen- 
timents, and absolutely destructive of present and future 
happiness. 

The distinguishing properties of our moral nature are 
understanding, volition, immortality. The understanding 
should toil and stretch after sublime ideas of God; and 
spiritual truths, the chief aliment of the soul in the eternal 
future, should be its richest treasure here. If the loftiest 
imagination and noblest performance of man, when he 
thinks and acts without reference to a future life, are but 
vanity, then corrupting, beyond the power of expression, 
must be the pursuit of sensual indulgences. Such a life is 
an insult to the memory of our divine original, a burial of 
our ancient hope in simple brutality, an absolute forfeiture 
of the divine property of our being. Such a life not only 
degrades the intellect, but pollutes the heart. The delights 
of sense, the ensnaring vanities of the world, more than any 
thing besides, exert this fatal influence. They alienate the 
thoughts from God, benumb conscience, obscure the light 
of reason, drag down the immortal spirit from the society 
of the good and communion with God, and compel it to be 
a purveyor and a vassal to a body of corruption and death. 
Cut off from all holy meditation and association ; encum- 



254 BISHOP PIERCE'S SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

bered with impure and groveling thoughts ; clotted by foul 
contagion, gluttony, drunkenness, and sensuality; shorn 
of their dignity, debauched and imbruted, these miserable 
sinners are a reproach to humanity and a curse to their 
race. They glory in their shame, die while yet they live, 
and rot above the ground. But the memory of the just is 
blessed. A good name regales the heart with choicest mem- 
ories of the past, enriches the present with the testimony of 
a good conscience, and the conscious sense of deserved re- 
spect, and irradiates the future with the light of hope more 
precious than all the joys of earth. 

A good name, implying as it does the favor of God, is 
more precious than the honor that cometh of man. A de- 
cent respect for public opinion is to be cherished ; a desire 
of praise subordinate to truth and moral principle is not to 
be denounced as criminal and corrupting. But to court 
the applause of men by trimming and by policy, the ambi- 
tion to excel for the sake of popularity and adulations, per- 
verts and demoralizes ; and even the glory fairly won — if 
this be proposed as the aim and end of life — forms an in- 
superable bar to salvation. "How can ye believe, if ye 
receive honor one of another?" 

After all, whatever grandeur may mark the conceptions 
of a mind limited to a mortal range, whatever achievements 
of statesmanship or heroism may shed luster upon a char- 
acter belonging only to the empire of time, whatever de- 
partment of this little sphere may be occupied and magni- 
fied by genius, viewed in the light of an eternity which 

, surely comes, is nothing — less than nothing. 

% 

"When fame's great trump has blown its loudest blast, 
Though long the sound, the echo sleeps at last. 

"But he that doeth the will of God abideth forever." 
False the light on glory's plume, fickle the breath of popular 



BISHOP JAMES OSGOOD ANDREW. 255 

applause, transient all earthly fame and power; but the 
honor which comes from God outlives the body, outlasts the 
earth, outshines the sun. 

Now, let me remind you that the race is not to the swift, 
nor the battle to the strong, nor yet bread to men of under- 
standing. Whatever your native endowments, your apti- 
tudes for business, time and chance will happen to you all. 
Wealth may never be your portion. The chances are all 
against you. The best concerted schemes are vain ; mis- 
carriages, disappointments, defeats, all may come — most 
likely will ; riches make to themselves wings and fly away. 

Pleasure is short-lived. It is for a season — a moment 
bright, then gone forever. It is too costly for indulgence ; 
it demands the most expensive sacrifice. To give up your 
soul, your God, your everlasting welfare for the delicious 
excitement of carnal mirth — this indeed is a woful bargain, 
an immortal birthright for a mess of pottage. Those who 
thus irrationally invert the order of things cannot be happy 
long. The eager, thoughtless infatuation which greedily 
swallows at a single draught the pleasures of life, drains 
the world of its last drop, will sit down by and by heart- 
sick with the fullness of satiety, or wail in anguish over the 
wreck of hope and happiness. 

" Seekest thou great things unto thyself? Seek them not." 
They are not necessary to thy happiness. They may not 
come at thy call, nor will they tarry if they do. You can- 
not command the spirits of this vasty deep. No lordly 
estate may fill your exchequer, nor pleasure's dulcet voice 
speed the rosy hours on rapture's wings, nor trumpet voice 
shout your name to the winds of heaven. 

But, after all, this world is of little value. All other 
distinctions will be swallowed up in that grand one which 
subsists between those who serve God and those who serve 
him not. You may come short of wealth or reputation, or 



256 BISHOP PIERCE'S SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

the friendship of the great or the idolatry, of the masses, 
but the King of heaven will guide and guard, bless and 
save. " Them that honor me I will honor, saith the Lord 
of hosts." Here is the motive which should control your 
choice, and the guarantee which insures success. 

Now, after this running comment upon the text, I pro- 
ceed with the lessons and illustrations furnished by the life 
and character of Bishop Andrew. First, I present him as 
a beautiful example of early piety. He professed conver- 
sion and joined the Church at twelve years of age; and 
thus the God of his father was the guide of his youth. His 
circumstances were humble, his parents were poor, the coun- 
try was new, society rude, schools few and inferior; and in 
his general surroundings there was but little to inspire and 
elevate. In the rudiments of education his father — a plain 
man, whose curriculum was confined to reading, writing, and 
arithmetic — was his chief instructor. The domestic library 
was small and — as it ought to be in every good man's house 
—chiefly religious. It was eagerly devoured by the untu- 
tored boy, whose mental instincts reached out after knowl- 
edge as plants in dark places lean to the sun. The influ- 
ence of these books on his mind and heart and character, 
who can tell ? But by a law of nature often verified in the 
history of our race, he derived his intellect from his moth- 
er. By constitutional transmission and by personal influ- 
ence she molded the boy for a glorious manhood. Her 
strong mind and gentle kindness, sanctified by pious exam- 
ple, sowed the seed and presided over the germination and 
growth of those moral qualities which made him a man 
and a Christian, a minister and a Bishop. While yet a 
boy, leaving home for his first circuit, the maternal heart, 
yearning with anxiety and love, reluctant to break the fam- 
ily circle, yet resolved to lay upon the altar of the Church 
her dearest, costliest sacrifice, before she printed the fare- 



BISHOP JAMES OSGOOD ANDREW. 257 

well kiss upon his brow, said: "James, if \ou are faithful 
I shall be happy." In her, grace triumphed over nature. 
God accepted the sacrifice and service of her faith. Her 
reward was glorious. She lived to see the young Samuel 
whom she lent to the Lord a judge in Israel — great, useful, 
ancj honored. 

Let it be specially noticed that whatever his native en- 
dowments, and however propitious his domestic associations, 
the true foundation of his character which loomed up in 
future years was the fear of God, a converted heart, relig- 
ious principle deeply radicated and carefully cultured. 
Young men of the college, let me beseech you by this 
eminent example to give your hearts to God, and to dedi- 
cate yourselves, soul and body, to his service. Your nature 
is evil, and the world is wicked, snares abound, infidelity is 
abroad — subtle, insidious, full of deadly poison — tempta- 
tion lurks in every path, a thousand enemies lie in ambush 
to destroy. You need a guide, divine guardianship, an Al- 
mighty shield. Religion will save you from a thousand 
evils into which, without her protection, you will almcfet 
assuredly run. It is best for your health, which folly and 
sin will undermine and destroy. It is best for your, bodies 
by saving them from disease, deformity, and premature de- 
cay. Many men w T ould have lived longer if they had lived 
better. The sins of their youth cut short their days, and 
laid down with them in an early grave. It is best for your 
secular concerns: "Acknowledge God in all your ways, 
and he will direct your paths." Temperance, frugality, and 
integrity; faith, hope, and charity, will make you a good 
name, and very likely fortune too. "The blessing of it 
maketh rich, and addeth no sorrow with it." It is best for 
your worldly connections. Without experience, imprudent, 
rash, ignorant of the world, deceived by appearances, ex- 
posed to evil company, what is to become of you without 
17 



258 BISHOP PIERCE'S SERMONS AXD ADDRESSES. 

the preserving power of religion f The force of temptation, 
of example, of untried circumstances, will be too much for 
you. Without God you are not ready for the battle of life. 
f 'He that trusteth his own heart is a fool." "It is not in 
man that walketh to direct his steps." I quake for my 
country, I tremble for the rising generation, when I look 
out upon the hazards of society, the infatuation of custom 
and pleasure, the skepticism of philosophy, the corruptions 
of the press, the oppositions of science — falsely so called — 
the loose maxims, the demoralizing sentiments which per- 
vade commerce, politics, literature, and even infest the 
Churches, Who can pass the ordeal without contagion? 
O Lord God, some of us have traveled these slippery places 
when it was easier to stand than now, and were scarcely 
saved! We barely escaped with our garments on, when 
the fires of temptation burned low ; now, when the furnace 
is seven times hotter than it was wont to be, descend thou 
Son of God, and walk through the flames with these chil- 
dren of the Church and the country! 

, Religion is best for the calamities of life. Man is born 
to trouble. Afflictions await you. Your possessions make 
you capable of loss; your hopes expose you to disappoint- 
ment; your best affections may become the inlets of a thou- 
sand sorrows. The days of darkness may be many, and 
" the clouds will return after the rain." You will need 
" a covert from the storm and a hiding-place " from the 
winds of adversity. "Acquaint now thyself Avith God, and 
be at peace ; thereby good shall <:ome unto thee." 

It is best for old age. " The days of our years may be 
threescore and ten, or by reason of strength fourscore 
years;" but years will bring decrepitude, dim eyes, and 
dullness of hearing; desire will fail, the grasshopper will 
be a burden ; then woe to the man who is unfurnished for 
the world to come! But early piety maintained and ma- 



BISHOP JAMES OSGOOD AX DREW. 259 

tured will shed over wrinkles and ruin a hallowed radiance, 
and the weary pilgrim, waiting upon the banks of the river 
till the messenger shall come, may rejoice in the memories 
of the past and the hopes of the future, and sing himself 
away to everlasting bliss. 

Bishop Andrew's good name was the crowning glory of 
a life of earnest, decisive, consistent, heroic piety. Wish- 
ing to avoid what myself and others have said on other 
occasions, and to make this discourse useful for those whose 
benefit it is specially intended, I beg to present these illus- 
trations of the integrity and dominion of his Christian 
principles. First, his prompt obedience to the divine call 
to the ministry. With every man called of God, as was 
Aaron, this is a tremendous struggle. I know no ordeal 
like unto it. The awful responsibilities of the vocation, its 
toils, sacrifices, and discouragements ; the humbling, crush- 
ing, sense of insufficiency; the reverential fear of rushing 
in unbidden if I go; the terrible apprehensions of God's 
displeasure if I stay; the doubt of acceptance from the 
Church if I offer; the probable failure to meet the demands 
upon me if authorized to try — all these on the one side; 
and on the other the sudden, total revolution of one's life- 
plan, the surrender of hope which ambition had cherished, 
the dissipation of the dreams* in which the heart had rev- 
eled, to forego home and fortune and ease, to embrace 
poverty, to consent to dependence, to become a wanderer 
upon the earth, and to go whither we would not. O Lord, 
some of us know what all this means; and perhaps in this 
youthful throng more than one spirit is passing through 
this trying ordeal. O young man — my son — if the word 
of the Lord has come unto thee saying, "Arise, go preach 
the preaching I bid thee," I warn you, I beseech you, do not 
run with Saul to hide in the stuff, nor take ship with Jonah 
for Tarshish! If you hide or run, the stuff will perish; the 



260 bishop pierce's sermons and addresses. 

ship will be broken. You yourself will travel the path of 
life a sad, disappointed., defeated man, lacerated with thorns 
and briers, and be saved at last, yet so as bv fire ; or more 
likely die a miserable apostate, bereft of hope, disinherited 
of heaven, ruined world without end. 

It would be difficult to imagine a case more trying than 
that of James 0. Andrew. Young, timid, ignorant, all 
unused to society — his travels limited to the neighboring 
mill, where the family got their bread, and the country 
church, where they went to sing and pray — for him to think 
of going out in God's name to confront the pride and pcmp, 
the talent and culture of the Avorld! Who can tell the 
tremor, the torture of his soul? But, thank God, he went! 
In his upheaval of thought and sensibility the moral cour- 
age of the incipient man cropped out — the index of force 
yet in reserve, the symbol of power, the pledge of fidelity. 
The love of Christ did him constrain. " Go seek the wan- 
dering souls of men." Grace triumphed over nature, the boy 
was merged and lost in the Christian, and the trembling itin- 
erant rode out from his good old father's house with saddle- 
bags, Bible, hymn-book, and Discipline, not knowing whith- 
er he went. It was a meager outfit for a glorious life. But 
in that sad, desponding soul there lived and reigned the 
faith of Abraham. In that little cloud God was forging a 
son of thunder. In that unopened bud there was treasured 
a fragrance which was to regale the Church from ocean to 
ocean. There rode, all unconscious of his destiny, the fut- 
ure successor of Asbury and McKendree, in piety and power 
not a whit behind the chiefest of them all. 

But where are the hands that never hang down? the faith 
that never trembles? Elijah fled from Ahab, and begged 
God to let him die ; and it is reported of Andrew that, con- 
scious of his ignorance and defects, discouraged by repeated 
failures, he - resolved to leave his circuit and abandon the 



BISHOP JAMES OSGOOD ANDREW. 261 

ministry. On his way he met a colored man who told him 
he had been awakened and converted by his preaching; 
and, accepting the token, he rallied and resolved that if 
God would make him useful even to a negro slave he would 
resume his work and cleave to it to the end. There was 
the true ministerial spirit — humility, devotion, all for Christ. 
There was the stuff martyrs are made of. There was the 
self-abnegation which, in the olden times, entered the ring 
with infuriated beasts, drank the molten lead, handled the 
red fire, and played with the bickering flames for the sake 
of Christ and heaven. 

Another remarkable instance of his devotedness to the 
Church and his reliance on God, and of his sagacious states- 
manship in ecclesiastical policy, is found in the fact I am 
going to mention. For a long time after the organization 
of our Church no married man was found in the ranks of 
active itinerancy. Bishop Asbury lived and died a bach- 
elor; so did McKendree; and many of the preachers imi- 
tated their example. The country was new, the Church 
was poor, the Discipline made no provision for families; 
and commonly the resolution to marry and locate were co- 
incident. In this way the Church had lost and was losing 
her wisest, ablest, and most experienced men. The policy 
was wrong, though sustained by Conference opinion and 
distinguished example. The Church approved it, for it was 
economical- -saved time and money. To oppose it was un- 
popular ; to defy it was hazardous. What work will receive 
a married man? How is he to provide for his wife? These 
were grave questions, full of pith and meaning. With all 
our improvements in finance the support of wife and chil- 
dren is still an anxious question. Then it was the question, 
and unanswered save by trust in Providence. James O. 
Andrew and Samuel Hodges resolved to marry and travel on. 
Their wives — noble women, heroines in devotion to their 



262 BISHOP PIERCERS SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

husbands and faith in God — were like-minded. Mutually 
they determined to make the experimeut and take the con- 
sequences. A new and better order of things was inau- 
gurated. The-Church has been the beneficiary of it. And 
out of it — for his brethren in the ministry — have come par- 
sonages, furniture, a higher education of the people in lib- 
erality, and a less encumbered itinerancy. We are indebt- 
ed to these noble men and women. They dared and suffered, 
but never fainted. There was the statesmanship which 
forecast the future, and planned to meet its demands ; there 
the moral courage which braved the odium of an un- 
popular reform; there the steadfast adherence to duty at 
the risk of martyrdom, when more than blood might be 
spilled; there the faith which cleaved to God in the dark, 
built an altar, and inscribed upon it, "Jehovah-jireh, the 
Lord will provide." 

The last example of the dignity and grandeur of this 
man which I will mention was his Christian conduct and 
bearing in the contest of 1844, in the General Conference 
at New York. Then and there fanaticism and conserva- 
tism shook hands like Herod and Pilate, and conspired to 
make him the victim (all innocent though they allowed 
him to be) of one of their great moral ideas. Arrested 
without accusation, judged without trial, condemned with- 
out being asked to speak for himself, deposed from his high 
office without law, and contrary to law, amid it all he bore 
himself as a man — a Christian man — without passion or 
recrimination. There was no bravado, no rude defiance nor 
sycophant whining, no lugubrious appeals to public sym- 
pathy. Calm, patient, silent, he committed his cause to 
God and bided his time. The Southern Church, with its 
self-denying ministry, its six hundred thousand members,* 
its papers, its institutions of learning, its revivals and glorious 

*In 1885 about one million. — Editor. 



BISHOP JAMES OSGOOD ANDREW. 263 

progress, is the vindication of his course and the reward of 
his fidelity. In all the families of our wide-spread Meth- 
odism his name is a household word — their children, their 
colleges, their churches, are called after him. Now that 
he has left us, the savor of his hallowed character lingers 
a perfume and a benediction, reminding us of the heaven 
to which he has gone. He died in the Lord ; his works 
follow him; and his influence for good survives him, and 
will live on beyond his own generation. 

But I have said enough. The good man's life was known 
and read of all. I was intimate with him for forty years, 
and I bear witness I never knew a purer man. He lived 
long and he lived well. He went about doing good. His 
consecration was complete. He served his generation by 
the will of God. His youth, his manhood, and his old age 
were all radiant with the beauty of holiness. There is no 
blot upon his history. No reproach blurs his good name. 
He has left a heritage to his children richer than money, 
more desirable than lands, more precious than diamonds. 
To the Church his example is a legacy of instruction and 
encouragement, of inspiring memories and imperishable 
hopes. He loved the cause of Christ with undying devo- 
tion, and O brethren in the ministry, he carried us in his 
heart of hearts. His interceding cry for the preachers was 
familiar to the ear of Heaven. 

He joined the Church sixty-five years ago ; was an active, 
laborious traveling preacher twenty years, and a Bishop 
thirty-nine years. What scenes, what labors, what trials, 
w T hat triumphs, are included in this long and honorable 
record ! Devoted when he was little and unknown ; hum- 
ble when he was great and honored ; faithful when he served 
in the ranks of his brethren ; tender, forbearing, and kind 
when exalted to office and burdened with the most delicate 
responsibilities ever committed to man — I can pronounce no 



261 

no higher eulogy than to say he never disappointed the 
hopes nor betrayed the confidence of the Church. Equal 
to the demands of every position, consistent in every trial, 
he worked diligently without complaint, endured heroically 
like a martyr, and triumphed like a saint. 

" In age and feebleness extreme," his heart still warm with 
the fervor of devotion, he moved among the churches where 
he had preached the gospel, and from the rich stores of his 
own mellow experience inspired the hope of the aged and the 
zeal of the young, and in the spirit of benignity and love 
commended all to the blessing of God with the affection of 
a father and the faith of an apostle. 

He made his last visit to the city of New Orleans, preached 
on Sabbath morning with more than usual vigor and zeal, 
addressed the Sabbath-school children — his last public act — 
and on Tuesday night the messenger came and smote him 
with paralysis, the token of his departure. He was taken 
to Mobile to the parsonage, where his youngest daughter 
lived, and there he breathed his last. He lingered for sev- 
eral days after his arrival. The power of articulation was 
sufficiently restored for him to converse. He talked of the 
Church, and God, and heaven. He sent messages of love 
to his colleagues, to the Conference, and to special friends. 
His soul was full of peace and hope and joy; there were no 
distressing doubts, no gloomy fears to shade the closing hours 
of his well-spent life; and the memory of his gracious words 
linger with us like the evening-star shining over the place 
where his sun went down. O it was a glorious death! The 
old body, trembling, tottering, worn out, lying down in 
dreamless slumber ; the tired, weary soul, coming up from 
the deep, dark waters of its last baptism, and shouting back 
to weeping friends, "I have fought a good fight, I have 
finished my course, I have kept the faith." His body lies 
in yonder grave-yard, beside the wife of his youth. From 



BISHOP JAMES OSGOOD ANDREW, 265 

this woodland town some years ago her ransomed soul went 
up to heaven. By his dying - request his remains were 
brought from a distant city for interment here,* and when 
the voice of the archangel and trump of God shall peal 
over sea and land they shall rise together and be forever 
with the Lord. 

Behold, ye aged disciples, companions of the departed 
Andrew, the goodness, the patient kindness, the all-suffi- 
cient grace of God ! Be encouraged. Your God will never 
leave you nor forsake you. He was with Andrew 'all along 
and to the last ; and above all, at the last. You may out- 
live your capacity to labor, and infirmities may come upon 
you, and the world forget you, but he will never turn you 
out-of-doors. He will remember the kindness of your youth, 
and your hoary hairs shall glisten with the light of his 
benediction. When heart and flesh shall fail, the nearest, 
dearest friend of all will be Him who made and who will 
deliver you. Endure to the end. Hope on to the last. 
You are riding at anchor off the haven now ; the next 
wind and tide will w r aft you in. And now, young men, 
accept this feeble tribute to the memory of a great and 
good man who loved you, prayed for you, pointed you to 
heaven and led the way. I have not intended to glorify 
him, but to benefit you. Let his life be your pattern and 
guide. Adopt his principles, imitate his habits. Devote 
yourselves, like him, to the service of God and man. He 
lived to be old ; you may depart in your prime. Readiness 
to die is the best preparation for life. let the voice of 
the living preacher to-day encourage you to love and seek 
and cherish the good name so gloriously illustrated in the 
life of the deceased, and glorified by his death, and conse- 
crated by his grave ! To you especially who are about to 

*The body of Bishop Andrew rests in the Oxford cemetery. — 
Editor. 



%S6 BISHOP PIERCE'S SERMONS AXD ADDRESSES. 



go out from college to take your places in the world, I pray 
you distinguish this day by the surrender of yourselves to 
Him who says to each of you, "My son, give me thine 
heart." * You are standing on the threshold of a perilous 
future; will you enter it without God? The question is of 
awful moment. Whether your Christian friends shall re- 
joice or be miserable, whether you shall be a bane or a 
blessing to society, whether you shall contribute to the safe- 
ty or the perils of the country — ah ! ah ! whether you shall 
perish or be saved — all depends, perchance, upon the decis- 
ion of this hour. What do you mean to do? A place is 
vacant in the house of God; who will fill it? A sentinel 
has fallen upon the watch-tower; who will be baptized for 
the dead? You have been born into the world. You are 
the pride of your fathers, the joy of your mothers, the de- 
light of your friends ; walk worthy of these blessed affections ; 
fulfill the hope of your family ; meet the demands of your 
country; enter upon the service of the Church; serve your 
generation by the will of God ; so live that the day of your 
death may be better than the day of your birth ; and while 
earth weeps over your departure, heaven shall rejoice in 
your coronation. 

* It is said that three young men of the college settled the question 
of their call to preach, and dedicated themselves to the work of 
Christ, while listening to this sermon. — Editor. 



The Moral Power of a good Woman* 



BY DK. LOVICK PIERCE. 



"And so will I go in unto the king, which is not according to 
the law; and if I perish, I perish." (Esther iv. 16.) 

THE very sound as well as the sense of the text thrills 
our common humanity with the feeling of an agoniz- 
ing sympathy. One feels as if suspended between 
the gloomy court of death and the bare chance of life, and 
yet compelled, from a sense of duty, to take the awful risk. 
Such precisely was the situation of Queen Esther. 

Circumstances unbargained for by her had placed her in 
a relation to affairs fast nearing to desperate maturity. Ac- 
cording to the iron rule of the kingdom every Jew found 
in it, with the women and the children, was to be massacred, 
and the spoil to be taken by their murderers. All this by 
royal decree, already sealed with the king's ring, and pro- 
claimed by special post-riders throughout the one hundred 
and twenty-seven provinces over which Ahasuerus, the king, 
swayed his scepter of life or death. This was the state of 
things in relation to the Jews ; they were all under a decree 
of extermination, and of course if this unrelenting decree 
went into effect Queen Esther herself must have been put 
to the sword. 

\s to her blood she was a genuine Jewess. It seems 
from the record that while the long course of ceremonial 
preceding a royal marriage was going on, and after Ahasu- 

*A Commencement Sermon at Andrew Female College, Cuthbert, 
Ga., preached by Dr. Pierce, June, 1872. 

(267) 



268 bishop pierce's sermons and addresses. 

erus had selected Esther to be his queen, and the installa- 
tion had proceeded to crowning her, and to arraying her 
in royal apparel, her Jewish blood and relationships had 
been kept in sacred secrecy from all the officers of the 
king's household. This charge of secrecy was given Esther 
by Mordecai, who was, I think, uncle to her; at all events 
he had adopted her and brought her up as his own daugh- 
ter. Esther was an orphan, and well did Mordecai care for 
her ; and well did Esther requite the kindness of his love. 

In this history we have one of the many instances in 
which we see it practically demonstrated that God does re- 
strain the wrath of man, and make the remainder of wrath 
to praise him. This God does, yet leaving man's will free 
in all the range of its projections. Although there was 
vile injustice in the deposition of Queen Vashti from her 
queenly rights, and although there was barbarian libertin- 
ism in the course recommended by his courtiers for the se- 
lection of another queen, still you must allow me to say 
that I see in these strange procedures the foot-prints of the 
same overruling Providence that I see in the history of Jo- 
seph — his sale by his inhuman brethren and his going down 
into Egypt. In all these things we see how impossible it 
is that God should have inspired the wicked deeds of evil 
men, and yet we see clearly how he managed and overruled 
them all. In all such histories we see God remonstrating 
with men and warning them; yet, when man's wayward 
heart persists in evil, God leaves him to hellish deeds. And 
when God would make the " remainder of wrath" to praise 
him he prevents, by some providential interference, the in- 
tended evil. 

In the history of Joseph we see how God shielded Joseph 
by a series of simple mental impressions such as determine 
the course of business men all the time. Whether the Ish- 
maelites intended to pass Dothan when they left home for 



THE MORAL POWER OF A GOOD WOMAN. 2G9 

Egypt is clearly immaterial. God, to whom all our pur- 
poses are known, knew just when and how to bring the 
itinerant traders of the desert into conjunction with the fell 
design of Joseph's brethren, and, as I understand the divine 
methods, without any coercion of the will. Besides the 
simple mental impression to which allusion has been made, 
there are the emotional sympathies of affectionate sorrow. 
These God can stir at a time and in a way to arrest or 
change proceedings and to prevent a great evil by allow- 
ing a less. This no doubt God did in the case of Joseph. 
Early in the history one of Joseph's brethren began to relent, 
and he pleaded that, instead of assassinating him outright, 
they should cast him into a pit, and leave him to die alone. 
This was readily agreed to. Lowering him into the pit, they 
sat down to their noonday repast apparently dead to their 
brother's woes. But not so with every one; the brother's 
heart was still faintly alive in one bosom ; and as these Ish- 
maelites would buy anything that could be sold again, and 
as Egypt was a slave-market, it was proposed to the hard- 
hearted brothers that they should take Joseph from the pit 
and sell him to the speculators. In this way Joseph's life 
was saved by God's own way of restraining the wrath of 
man. Joseph was sold a slave in Egypt, and after many 
changes in the seeming misfortunes of his life, God elevated 
him to the highest dignity next to Pharaoh himself. This 
elevation of Joseph was brought about by a series of expe- 
riences and providences most interesting and instructive, 
but they cannot be set in order now. Of the revelation of 
Joseph to his brethren in Egypt, of the removal of Jacob 
down to Goshen, and other events in this history, I cannot 
now speak particularly. It is enough for all my purposes 
now that Joseph, after the death of Jacob, when his breth- 
ren, in fear of vengeance, referred again to their cruel 
treatment of him, quieted their fears by telling them that 



270 bishop Pierce's sermons and addresses. 

not they but God had sent him into Egypt to preserve them 
and much people alive. 

A just seuse of God's place and presence in one of these 
complex scenes is the welcome Ararat on which the ark of 
the mind rests in happy contentment after a perilous voy- 
age through these waters seemingly so treacherous and so 
dimly seen by men in their ordinary thoughts. For some 
people to see how God does what he does not actually do 
in his own choice and exertion of power is strangely diffi- 
cult — difficult, I think, mainly because we do not trace his 
footsteps in these ways as the footsteps of God. We look 
for him as if he must be causative wherever he is efficient. 
This is a grave mistake. God did send Joseph into Egypt 
as assuredly as if he had projected every scene in the his- 
tory. For it is in him in every sense that " we live, and 
move, and have our being." Woe to us if God cannot so 
overrule what is intended by man to end only in misery so 
as to turn it unto the greatest good ! 

I speak reverently when I say I do not see how the 
good that came of it could have been procured to man ex- 
cept by a levy of this sort upon the wickedness of some 
men for the good of others. If Joseph had simply emi- 
grated to Egypt, and by meritorious deeds had ingratiated 
himself into the favor of Pharaoh till he became the sec- 
ond in the kingdom, it would have availed nothing in be- 
half of revealed religion. It would have been looked upon 
by men of the world as a lucky hit. But the case was very 
different; he was sold into Egypt as a slave; he emerged 
from prison upon interpreting dreams, after having declared 
to all applicants that the interpretation of dreams belonged 
to God himself, doing this not for delay, but to open up in 
the Egyptian mind — and especially in the mind of the Pha- 
raohs — a pathway to a proper appreciation of the God of 
the Jews. Thus, whether Joseph was working with God 



THE MORAL POWER OF A GOOD WOMAN. 271 

and for God as one engaged, or whether God was working 
like God through Joseph, is immaterial to the issue before 
us, which is that God, in all these seemingly abnormal oc- 
currences, was working out results in proof of the great 
truth that there is but one true and living God, and that 
this God is the God of the Jews. Hence, no one but a 
Jew was ever used as a divine medium in the communication 
of the knowledge of God to man, as a God at hand and 
not a God afar off. Wherefore, Paul says that the greatest 
benefit conferred upon the Jews, in the covenants made 
with their fathers, was that unto them were committed the 
oracles of God. Upon this basis God proceeded all the 
time; whatever he did decidedly demonstrative of the fact 
that the God of the Jews was the true God he did by a 
Jew. He did this by a Jew — whether in Egypt by Joseph, 
in the court of Ahab by Elijah, in the overthrow of the 
altars of Baal ; in the court of Nebuchadnezzar by Dan- 
iel, a captive prophet of God, in restoring to the king his 
lost dream with the interpretation thereof, or in deci- 
phering for Belshazzar the mysterious handwriting upon 
the wall, which proved to be the knell of his departing 
glory. Both Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar loaded Dan- 
iel with honors, but the chief honor they awarded him was 
the declaration that Daniel's God was the true and only 
living God. 

I have taken this range of thought because the observa- 
tions made on parallel instances lead us to a far more favor- 
able stand-point for learning the lessons which belong to 
Esther's elevation to the queenship and Mordecai's promo- 
tion to the premiership in the kingdom of Ahasuerus. It 
is especially noteworthy in reference to the Jews that God 
conferred upon them many distinguished honors because he 
was the God of Abraham. He often reminded his erring 
peoj)le that the blessings he was conferring upon them were 



272 BISHOP PIERCE'S SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 



not conferred on their account, but for the sake of their 
great fathers — Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob — or else for "his 
name's sake." And in all this we cannot but recognize that 
the covenant mercies of God are a guarantee of good to 
our children, well worth securing to them, if by their folly 
they should forfeit the best part of their inheritance. That 
children should be exalted in their civil rnd social relations 
here is desirable. God's dealings with the Jews as his cov- 
enant peopie, and his repeated use of explanatory terms in 
order to teach them his purposes, leave no room to dcubt 
but that we can secure great good to our children by enter- 
ing into covenant with God ourselves, and bringing our chil- 
dren within its ample folds upon the faith of its promises. 

The fact that God's original promise to Abraham as his 
covenant was national as well as personal, civil as well as 
sacred, should never be lost sight of. The Jews in their 
day were to be quoted by other nations as a \\ise people in 
legislation, having laws more righteous anel just than oth- 
ers, but especially in having a God near at hand and ready 
to give them whatsoever they called on him for that was 
good for them. On this basis it was that the petitions of 
the Jews marvelously answered were very generally of a 
national interest, and were answered because they were in- 
cluded in the current promises made to' Abraham. There- 
fore, whenever an emergency arose in matters of State, there 
was a son of Abraham at hand, as in Joseph's case in Egypt, 
the Hebrew children and Daniel in Babylon, and Mordecai 
and Esther in the court of Ahasuerus. God always pre- 
ferred one of his chosen people for the highest honors to be 
won and worn; all of which shows that the civilization con- 
sequent upon revealed religion is to rule the world at last. 

My argument is that Vashti's deposition from her queen's 
state was not in order that Esther might be raised to it, but 
that, Vashti being deposed by unrighteous tyranny, Esther 



THE MORAL POWER OF A GOOD WOMAN. 273 

was chosen in the goodness of God for the accomplishment 
of gracious ends. And as I read God's providences he 
gave the queenship to Esther upon the scheme adopted by 
the enemies of Vashti for filling the vacant dignity. She 
was selected by the king himself upon the inspiration of a 
spontaneous affection. He saw Esther in nature's simple, 
guileless charms. Whether he would have fallen under the 
spell of these charms had he then known that she was a 
Jewess is unknown ; the presumption is against it. But in 
unprejudiced nature to see her, and suffer the enkindling 
of love's pure flame upon nature's simple sensibility, was 
irretrievable captivity. No man is actually responsible for 
his captivity to unmanipulated love. And such was the 
captivity of Ahasuerus to the charms of Esther. He loved 
her as soon as he saw her. He closed his sight to see an- 
other one out of the scores yet unintroduced. From this 
stand-point one can see exactly why Solomon, in his esti- 
mate of Jewish matrons, should have said of the wife of 
him who gains his choice: "Many daughters have done 
virtuously, but thou excellest them all." Every satisfied 
husband has a peerless wife. 

Let us intermit the further view of Queen Esther at 
this time, and attend to the case of Queen Vashti. Her 
deposition to appease the king's wrath against her makes it 
our duty to inquire into her offending. The history is that 
the king, Ahasuerus, in the third year of his reign, made 
a feast to the princes and nobility of his vast dominion, in- 
cluding a hundred and twenty-seven provinces. This he 
did that he might display the riches and glory of his 
kingdom, and of course of his own glorious majesty. This 
feast lasted one hundred and eighty days, excelling at 
least in duration. After this, and immediately upon its 
closing, he made a special feast of seven days for the 
princes and nobility at Shush an, the palace. The com- 
18 



274 bishop pierce's sepmoxs axd addresses. 



pany upon this occasion was more select, embracing, as I 
suppose, his immediate cabinet and court. Here his gor- 
geous decorations were displayed iu all their magnificence. 
The inventory tempts one even now to furnish its roll. At 
this feast the king's wine was quaffed from vessels of gold, 
the vessels being diverse one from another. The guests, as 
I suppose, were at liberty to drink much or little, to get 
drunk or keep sober. On the seventh day, when the king's 
heart was merry — which means generally just drunk enough 
to make a man an enthusiastic fool over any project upon 
which he might stilt himself so as to make dissent from his 
projects of self-glorification a personal insult — the king 
ordered Vashti to put on the crown royal and her royal 
apparel, and to come into the banquet-hall to be gazed upon 
by these drunken lords, because she was fair to look upon 
— a beautiful, well-put-up woman — not now invited in as 
a companion of man, or as an honored guest at a royal 
feast, but as a woman, whose symmetrical form as a woman 
is to be exhibited — at least just now — as any other well- 
developed animal at a fair. And this show of herself was 
to be to men inflamed with wine and feeling themselves at 
liberty to discuss her in their revelry — not as Queen Yashti, 
but as a well-developed and beautiful woman. This coarse 
order of the king the noble Yashti refused to obey. Where- 
upon his wrath kindled into fury so hot that it burned 
within him, and he appealed at once to his wanton advis- 
ers — all of course in sympathy with his offended majesty — 
as to what should be done. They— as corrupt politicians 
always do — gave advice they thought would please him ; 
they advised him to issue his decree, sealed with his ring; 
and sent throughout the provinces of his realm, command-] 
ing all wives to obey the orders of their husbands in all 
things. This was done, as they pretended, to prevent the 
bad effects of Vashti's example, but really to justify the 



THE MORAL POWER OF A GOOD WOMAN. 2iO 

king's cruel act in the degradation of the queen ; for her ex- 
clusion from his presence and court was part of the decree. 

But we cannot pass away from Yashti, nor let her pass 
away from us, without paying to her memory a tribute of 
the highest regard. If we were called upon to reply to 
Solomon's startling inquiry, " Who can find a virtuous 
woman?" as soon as the preliminary question was settled 
as to the meaning of words, and it was agreed that by 
"virtuous woman" we are to understand a woman of true 
moral courage— moral courage enough to protect the dig- 
nity and sacred purity of her own native womanhood from 
all wanton public gaze for the gratification of carnal ad- 
miration — we would turn to Yashti, and say to Solomon: 
" Here is one who has won and who wears, with indisputa- 
ble title to it, this distinguishing and distinguished honor." 
Yashti had courage enough to maintain the dignity of her 
pure womanhood even at the cost of her royal crown. To 
judge of what was proper to her as a woman was a gift 
with which God, her Creator, had endowed her, and which 
she nobly defended in this trying hour. 

Ladies, let me say to you to-day that women do have 
rights, such rights as your illustrious sister, Yashti, illus- 
trated so grandly. If any of you as Christian women 
should have a husband who wants to carry you where you 
think a Christian woman ought not to be seen, do as Yashti 
did — stay at home. This is a woman's right. As for those 
hybrid women toward the north star, who are fussing for 
" woman's rights," I fear they are as dull upon the rights 
of womanhood as they are fierce in their claim for woman's 
rights. It is my opinion that if a case should occur to the 
leaders of that faction similar to Vashti's, they will dress 
and go in. 

Permit me to use this renowned instance of the glory of 
womanhood as a commendable example to your precious 



276 BISHOP PIERCE'S SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

sex. The venturesomeness of some women into scenes and 
associations where the flinching nerve of native modesty 
recoils to go is one of the most alarming signs of the time. 
It operates like an nnperceived rust upon the polish of a 
metal capable of damage by its defacing power. The en- 
slavement of the sex to fashionable idolatry is fearfully 
servile. 

Yashti scorned a crown at the cost of her womanly dig- 
nity. Ahasuerus might by despotic power take from her 
his part of the crown royal, yet he could not take from her, 
as a woman, her nobler crown of purity. This was in her — 
part of her very self. The richest jewel that composed it was 
the diamond of her womanly modesty. This precious jewel 
God has committed into the voluntary keeping of every 
woman for herself; for its safe-keeping Yashti was deposed. 
And while the throne of Ahasuerus has crumbled into dust, 
and his name survives dishonored, Yashti's star still bright- 
ens, and she stands to-day a true queen of her sex. Her 
record is clean and good. jSoble Yashti ! long may Geor- 
gia's comely daughters do honor to thy memoiy by their 
disdain of exhibition for the gratification of wanton eyes ! 

After the king's wrath had cooled down, and the ghosts 
of his wine-cups had flitted away, he remembered Yashti. 
In what particular way he remembered her the record does 
not say ; but from what ensued I suppose it was that un- 
der his drunken delirium he had made himself queenless, 
and that he now began to realize the loss of her who was 
the true glory of his court. But his decrees, under the 
law of his realm, were irreversible. As Yashti was lost to 
him, filling the vacancy was a desideratum of pressing mag- 
nitude. His servants, or chamberlains (and demagogues 
are always fruitful in expedients), advised that by special 
order a great company of fail* virgins out of every province 



THE MORAL POWER OF A GOOD WOMAN. 217 

of his vast empire should be brought to the house of the 
women at the palace in Shushan, under the care of Hege, 
who seems to have been a sort of apothecary-commis- 
sary to furnish these women with whatever was necessary 
to their pretentious ceremonials of purification. All this 
was readily agreed to by the kicg ; it was, as I suppose, 
only a more refined method of management common at this 
court in supplying the harem. To me it seems remarkable 
that in those days, when monarchs were more monarchical 
than in modern times, there seems to have been no care for 
royal blood in the marriage of kings — if marriage it was 
on the woman's side. Marriage in ancient monarchs was 
capricious; a king's wife was only his preferred woman. 
Hence, as in this case, the queen was not engaged, as in the 
sweet vows of love's courtshij}, but selected and taken as a 
gentleman nowadays would select at a fair a blooded horse. 

Ladies, at the review of these things, even at this late 
day, my blood grows hot, old as I am, to think that there 
ever wag a man of human rank, even in the days of Ahas- 
uerus, who would dare to take a woman as a helpmeet for 
him into the semblance of a wife until he had entered into 
the sacred chamber of her loving heart through the portal 
of her elective love. If I could believe that I was preach- 
ing to a daughter of Georgia who would not infinitely pre- 
fer to be the wife of some noble swain, running a nice little 
farm and domiciled in a pleasant rural cottage, elected by 
her love alone, than to be the wife of Prince Alexis,* if she 
were to be taken as a maiden fair to look upon (which 
was the only reason Ahasuerus gave for wishing to exhibit 
Vashti to the gaze of his drunken lords, and the very rea- 
son why Vashti glorified her womanhood in sternly refus- 
ing to lend it to such an unhallowed use) — I say if I could 
believe there was a woman in Georgia who would not pre- 

* Prince Alexis had just visited the United States. — Editor. 



278 BISHOP PIERCE'S SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

fer the rule of love in electing a husband to a rule of self- 
seeking vanity in gaining a prince, I would close my ser- 
mon, put on my sackcloth, and in bitter wailings in our 
streets would cry, " Woe, woe, to Georgia's female fame, for 
there has appeared a canker of leprosy on its face ! " Geor- 
gia cannot afford to breed women of this animal style ; the 
Southern climate, as our past history shows, is only suited 
to the production of true women who, while they must be 
seen in life, never seek to show themselves in plumes to 
wanton eyes. 

Among the captives carried away from Jerusalem in the 
time of Jeconiah, King of Judah, was Mordecai, a notable 
Jew of the tribe of Benjamin. " He had brought up Hadas- 
sah — that is, Esther, his uncle's daughter ; for she had neither 
father nor mother, and the maid was fair and beautiful; 
whom Mordecai, when her father and mother were dead, 
took for his own daughter." Under the wide door opened 
by the king's decree Mordecai, who knew the excellences of 
Esther for the vacant queenship, managed to bring her in for 
the chances of the succession. Her charms as a fair maiden 
must have been most resistless, for it seems as if the old 
chamberlain Hegai, keeper of the house of the women, was 
so enthused at the sight of her charms that he prepared for 
her the most choice apartments in the house and gave her 
the most distinguished attention, all of which no doubt even 
then dimly presaged her future glory. 

When it came to Esther's turn to be introduced to the 
king, she required less in the way of pageantry than any of 
her predecessors. Esther was one (I hope many of Geor- 
gia's fine specimen daughters are like her) who felt that if 
Ahasuerus was to be won by trinkets, Ahasuerus was not 
worth winning. She determined to win his love on her 
own account or not at all. And well did she bear herself ; 
she was no sooner seen than the conquest was made. Ahas- 



THE MORAL POWER OF A GOOD WOMAN. 279 

uerus loved her on sight — loved her so naturally and so 
decidedly that he wanted no more of the unseen company 
of maidens presented. In the charms of Esther he found 
his utmost ideal of female beauty and loveliness realized. 
At once, as I understand the history, he put on her head 
the royal crown, and proclaimed her queen. 

What a change! First an orphan of the captive Jew, 
next a ward in the house of Mordecai, next queen in the 
most magnificent court in the East. In the providence of 
God such a change must mean more than the accident of 
mere love. I venture the opinion that whatever Esther 
lacked in education she did not lack religious education 
according to the faith of the Jews. This opinion is fully 
justified by the course adopted by Esther to preface her 
bold adventure into the presence of the king in behalf of 
her people ; for no one can doubt that prayer was added to 
the three days' fasting in her behalf when she as queen was 
to test her favor at court by the largest request a queen 
ever made to her loving lord. The Jews, as a people, only 
expected relief in answer to prayer, accompanied by fast- 
ing. It is clear to me that there was in the mind of Mor- 
decai, in advance of open hostility, an impression that a 
crisis would arise in reference to the Jews out of which their 
deliverance w 7 ould in some way come according to God's 
delight in them as his peculiar people. Of course if his 
cousin Esther should become queen at the court where these 
issues had to be determined, it would improve the chances 
of successful intercession. Subsequent events showed the 
wise foresight of Mordecai, and the power of Esther at the 
court showed that decrees gloried in as irreversible could 
be dissolved by the moral power of woman, when wisely 
exercised, as snow is dissolved by the simple presence of 
natural warmth. 

What Queen Esther did from her more exalted position 



280 BISHOP PIERCE'S SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

every woman can do from her humbler position, if she will 
but bring into her moral enterprises the same sort of moral 
power. Before such a power the icebergs of man's selfish- 
ness will melt away, and by it she can overcome the obsti- 
nate unbelief of a husband whose heart could not be won 
to religion by other means. If I understand the meaning 
of the Spirit as it inspired the mind of St. Peter in his epis- 
tle to the churches, where he speaks of the adornments of 
Christian women, we are taught that women whose outward 
adorning is made up of mere show and glitter, whose costly 
array supports the proofs of their subjection to the lusts of 
the world and the pride of life, have no moral power either 
at home or anywhere else. And this is, I believe, as abso- 
lutely true as that a corrupt tree cannot bring forth good 
fruit, and for precisely the same reason. 

Dear Wesleyan Methodism, how art thou mangled and 
mutilated in the hands of thy silly daughters who have 
undertaken to represent thee after the women of a fashion- 
able, wicked world! I speak as unto wise women; judge 
ye what I say. 

Esther was chosen queen in the seventh year of Ahasu- 
erus. Soon afterward he made a great feast in honor of his 
bride that was called Esther's feast. During these days of 
bridal festivity the king did a great many clever things in 
the way of granting releases ; whether of prisoners, debtors, 
or felons, we are not able to say — likely of all. It may not 
be out of place here to say that while we think Ahasuerus, 
in the elevation of Haman to the premiership, manifested a 
poor knowledge of men, we must award to him the merit 
of being a fine judge of women ; for we do not think that 
any king was ever more fortunate in two queens than was 
Ahasuerus. As to what he made the great crime of Vashti 
we make it her crowning glory as a woman, and say that 
instead of losing a crown for her integrity it ought to have 



THE MORAL POWER OF A GOOD WOMAN. 281 

secured it to her forever. As to Esther, her immortality 
as a queen is secured against all loss by her record as the 
savior of her people. 

The promotion of Hainan to the highest office in the 
kingdom was a sad mistake. He was a haughty, bad- 
hearted man — a vile court intriguer. But the king had 
raised him up next to himself; had clothed him as the 
highest of the princes. Clad in the ensigns of royalty, and 
authorized to receive, and of course to exact, the homage of 
the people, he strutted forth with imperious majesty. But 
Mordecai, the Jew, refused to bow to Haman — for what 
particular reason, we are not informed. You will naturally 
conclude that it was from personal dislike. But I suppose 
it arose from his Jewish religion ; he would not submit to 
man-worship, even at the risk of conflict with the govern- 
ment. At all risks Mordecai, sitting at the king's gate, per- 
sistently refused to pay honor to Haman. His friends re- 
monstrated with him ; Haman was told of it, and Haman 
communicated it to the king. But all to no effect as it 
regarded the indomitable spirit of Mordecai ; to Haman he 
would pay no servile honors. With this began Haman's 
scheme of vengeance, including in its wide and deep malice 
the extermination of the Jewish race in the kingdom of 
Ahasuerus. He pleaded to the king that they were a set 
of nondescripts, having laws diverse from the king's people, 
and that they endangered the interests of the kingdom. It 
was a specious and artful plea, and had its effect. Haman, 
like a vile courtier, sought to complicate the religious laws 
of the Jews with the civil laws of the kingdom. He suc- 
ceeded in his intrigue, and the king gave him authority for 
the killing of all Jews living in the provinces that together 
made up the kingdom. The day was fixed — the thirteenth 
day of the tenth month, which was the month Adar. It 
was a hasty as well as a murderous decree. Surely the king 



282 BISHOP PIERCE 1 S SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

did not know that Esther was by her blood doomed to be 
one of its dishonored victims — of which, I suspect, he be- 
came bitterly apprised in after thoughts. The decree was 
sent by post- carriers, as I suppose, to all officers, civil and 
military, who were to see to its execution, and who, as a 
stimulus to their zeal, were authorized to take the spoil to 
themselves — a booty of no small gain. 

This proclamation thrilled the hearts of all the Jews with 
horror and dread. Especially did the noble Mordecai feel 
the pang of its cruelty. He had before saved the king's 
life from the fell design of assassination by two of his cham- 
berlains. He had proved himself to be a faithful subject, 
and now to be wantonly outlawed was more than his soul 
could quietly endure. And he rent his clothes, put on 
sackcloth and ashes, and took the streets of Shushan as an 
inconsolable mourner. In all this Mordecai may have had 
wise ends in view. 

Now commenced the secret communications on the state 
of affairs between Mordecai, the queen's dearest kinsman, 
and the queen herself. Mordecai insisted on the queen's 
influence with the king as the best chance ; the queen ar- 
gued the difficulties in her way as dark and discouraging, 
pleading the stern law of the court that whoever entered 
the court uncalled — although the queen herself — was put 
to instant and certain death, unless upon the uncertain 
chance that the king might extend the golden scepter as a 
token of mercy. She pleaded, as deepening her doubt of 
success, the fact that she had not for thirty days been called 
to the king's presence. The result of the conference was 
that the noble queen resolved to brave all danger. She 
said in effect: "If this is the only alternative, I will do or 
die. I will go in unto the king uncalled, and take the chance 
of death as the end of the law or of life as the boon of the 
king's favor." " If I perish, I perish." 



THE MORAL POWER OF A GOOD WOMAN, 283 

She gave orders through Mordecai to her people that 
they should observe three days of entire fasting ; surely of 
prayer also. She said that she and her women would do 
so likewise. All this doubtless to insure the blessing of 
God upon her desperate mission. On the third day, while 
the altars where her people prayed would still be wet 
with the tears of their grief, she would clothe herself in 
royal apparel and adventure herself into the king's pres- 
ence. 

Immortal, peerless woman! The glory of thy queenship 
is eclipsed in the splendor of thy moral courage, and the 
greatness of thy mission itself in the magnanimity of thy 
self-offering in its behalf. 

Upon this noble principle the queen put on her court- 
dress, for without it she would have been looked upon as a 
naughty intruder. (And it is a fit emblem of a penitent 
sinner preparing himself to gain audience and find accept- 
ance at the mercy-seat. His court-dress is a broken spirit ; 
a broken and a contrite heart God always accepts.) At an 
early hour of the day, as I suppose, Esther appeared before 
the king in her unmatched loveliness of person and charac- 
ter. He was moved at once to relieve her of the suspense 
of a venture. He hastened to hold out to her the golden 
scepter, the top of which she gracefully touched. The king 
saw, no doubt, that in her heart lay some hidden grief which 
she had come to pour into his ears, and he made haste to open 
to her a door as wide as her wants might be. He adjured 
her to make her requests and petition known, and pledged 
a response to even the half of his kingdom. The difference 
between "requests" and "petitions" which we find all 
through the course of this narrative, I suppose to be this : 
"requests" related to herself, "petitions" to others. The 
king disembarrassed her by letting her know that he would 
grant to her either or both. Here begins the proof that 



284 bishop pierce's sermons and addresses. 

Esther was a great as well as a good woman. Finding the 
king in her interest, and not finding it best to open tc him 
the entire budget of her court business at that time, Esther 
very adroitly and with diplomatic skill waived her ultimate 
request and petition, substituting them with the request 
that the king and Haman, his prime-minister, would attend 
her banquet of wine that day, which the king very grace- 
fully agreed to do, notifying Haman accordingly. 

During the banquet the king most graciously renewed 
his pledge to grant the queen her requests and petitions to 
the half of his kingdom. He saw most clearly that having 
him and Haman at her banquet was not the design of her 
venture into his presence uncalled. But the queen, seeing 
no doubt that the king was more and more inwrapped in 
the meshes of her diplomatic net, again waived the full 
answer to the king's anxious inquiry. She saw that the 
king longed to gratify her in granting her all she asked. 
She therefore put him off with another request to attend 
her banquet of wine the following day— he and Haman 
only. Again, with kingly courtesy, he consents. 

But between feast and feast what troubles they did meet! 
The king in his palace was as one on a bed of nettles, and 
Haman at home as one haunted by evil spirits. There was 
honest, refreshing sleep for neither. 

But to-morrow came, and, passing over much that inter- 
vened, we meet the king and Haman again at the queen's 
banquet of wine. Again the king renews his inquiry after 
the queen's "requests and petitions," and reassures her of 
his complacent regards. The time having come when, in 
her opinion, she must take the chances, she, in terms and 
tones of queenly respect, made known her prayer. Here 
begins the unfolding of her heart troubles. Her language 
is exceedingly courteous ; it is also well chosen and elegant. 
Her request and petition were, if she had found favor with 



THE MORAL POWER OF A GOOD WOMAN. 285 

the king, the reversal of a decree consigning her and her 
people to the sword on a certain day then near at hand. 
She modestly intimated that even a decree of enslavement 
she might have borne in silence, but the indiscriminate 
slaughter of her people was more than her nature could 
bear. 

By this time the king's sympathies were all boiling over, 
as if he were ignorant of the real contents of Haman's de- 
cree which he had allowed him to seal with the royal ring. 
Hence, he inquires who had done this evil deed? The 
gentle queen answers firmly, " This wicked Haman." At 
this his wrath boiled over, and leaving the*banquet-hall he 
walked for a time in the king's garden — as I suppose to 
regain self-control. While the king was gone Haman, feel- 
ing the day of retribution had come, implored the queen's 
intervention in his behalf; and when the king returned he 
found Haman, in his desperation, fallen upon the queen's 
bed. This only inflamed his wrath; and so it was that the 
revelations of the day and the culmination of the king's 
wrath ended in the hanging of Haman on the very gallows 
he had disdainfully erected for Mordecai, the hated Jew, 
who would not do him reverence. How fickle is fortuitous 
fame ! 

Esther is queen and Mordecai prime-minister at the court 
of Ahasuerus. Esther's moral courage and moral power 
had saved her people from destruction. 

This brings us to the sense of our chosen theme for this 
day's special service : the moral power of woman when well 
directed and when sustained by moral courage. In Queen 
Vashti's refusal to dishonor her sex by exhibiting her charms 
to roystering lords we have moral power and courage of 
high order; and in Queen Esther's lofty and unselfish dar- 
ing of all dangers for her people we have an example of 



286 bishop pierce's sermons and addresses. 

moral power and courage for the admiration of future 
times. 

Queen Esther, by a wise use of her moral power and cour- 
age combined, proved much more than the adage that woman 
is the power behind the throne. This alone could not merit 
immortal fame. For Jezebel and Herodias — infamous both 
— each exerted this power on the minds of kings; but it 
was diabolical power. Queen Esther's was the power be- 
fore the throne. And if you, young ladies, will use the 
moral power God has given you over men and the children 
of men in a wise and well-directed way, you can save a 
large proportion of our race that will go to perdition if 
you — in the bland and beautiful period of maiden witch- 
ery — instead of using your power as women ought, only 
cater for them in what they call a " calico carnival;"* for, 
as things now stand, you have authorized the belief that 
you will go into any thing considered bearable if it comes 
in the guise of style and fashion. If any trial of this sort 
is ever attempted on the young ladies of Andrew Female 
College, hiss it into disdain. Some college, where sanctified 
education is a public promise, must unfurl the banner of 
revolt against imperious, frivolous fashion, or else our effort 
to enrich the world by a class of women who will think 
and nobly act for the honor of women is a failure, and we 
are doomed to sing low upon our boast of sanctified educa- 
tion. Its angel face will nowhere appear where its worth 
can be tested ; great women will still be worshiping at the 
shrine of small things, furnishing presumptive proof that 
notwithstanding they have received the culture of educa- 
tion their minds still find delight in tinsel. 

To the young ladies of the college it is meet that I should 

"* About this time in Georgia " calico balls " in the name of charity 
were all the rage.— Editor, 



THE MORAL POWER OF A GOOD WOMAN. 287 

address a few parting words. I do it indiscriminately as to 
classes. As to Andrew Female College, you will be the 
representatives of its true merits You will be the proof- 
sheets of the literary and moral type-setting done here. 
And if you shine as brightly as the fine polish we try to 
put on you, you will increase the number of our matricu- 
lates — seeking the same fine polish — fifty per cent. You 
make us, as a faculty of instruction and as a board of trust- 
ees, dependent on you for success and renown. Beautiful 
catalogues and "fuss-and-feathers" puffings will only prove 
something outside of the real glory of a female college. 
Its alumna? will seal its fortune of fame or its doom of 
shame. 

It is a remarkable fact that in reference to the most intimate 
and endearing relation of life a consistent Christian charac- 
ter in woman has always been looked upon by sensible men 
as the jewel trait in her life. This is a singular instance, in 
man's common sense development, of moral nature. I sup- 
pose nothing would show more desperate moral obliquity in a 
man than to be looking for a very irreligious woman to be 
the wife of his bosom and the mother of his children. Ev- 
ery great-hearted, truly virtuous woman in the country 
would loathe him as a human fungus. He would be marked 
as Cain was by a mark of cursed alienation from all open 
communion with higher human life. 

All this, young ladies, shows with unmistakable certainty 
the great moral power with which God has endowed you as 
a sex. "Woman was indeed intended to be a helpmeet for 
man in every sense of help — as well as mental and moral, 
as physical and social. In civilized life cut off men from a 
becoming respect by first-class female association and they 
tend backward and downward, as if by gravitation. All 
that society wants in order to lessen and finally arrest the 



288 BISHOP pterce's sermons and addresses. 

tendency to deeper, darker putrefaction in the social walks 
of high civilization is a body of refined, educated Christian 
women who will refuse, on the ground of moral propriety 
in high and holy womanhood, to mix themselves with pro- 
miscuous assemblies, where, by universal consent, it is under- 
stood that every woman in the assembly voluntarily opens 
the way for any emotional effect that might become inci- 
dental to such assemblies. I say voluntarily ; for whoever 
volunteers to be present where sensual flames, by common 
consent, are known to be favored, betrays the lack of moral 
innocence. 

1 do not, ladies, intend any fulsome flattery of you when 
I tell you you can put an end to every carnal amusement 
of the age if you will add moral courage enough to the 
moral power of womanhood to put all carnal entertain- 
ments under the ban of your withering contempt. I tell 
you where you refuse to give your sanction men will cease 
to go. 

As to "carnal entertainments," all are carnal where the 
animus is irreligious. No woman ever lends her influence 
in favor of a fancy-dress ball, masquerade, common dance, 
skating-rink, opera, circus, or theater without announcing 
herself a sensualist in so far as public allowance has pro- 
vided for fashionable sensualism. I beseech you, young 
ladies of Andrew Female College, spurn from your blessed 
patronage all affiliation with forbidden sociality. Ther*, if 
Heaven so decrees, the spirit of the watchful and loving 
old Bishop will be about your- college lives as an unseen 
friend and guardian, rejoicing in your godly example. 

But methinks I hear some of you say: "Why, if we 
girls of Andrew Female College were to adopt these whole- 
some advices, it would only be as a drop in ocean's broad 
monopoly." This might be true, and yet it would be true 
also that the spirit of reform would be evoked from its long 



THE MORAL POWER OF A GOOD WOMAN. 289 

surrender of moral rule in the halls of festivity and seated 
again on its own native throne — the courageous moral will 
of godly women. Then we could always find a Queen 
Esther ready to brave dangers when great moral interests 
are at stake. 

Ladies in general, I appeal to you all. I know you are 
flesh and blood, fallen and much disabled in moral strength. 
I know it is as much our duty to stay the tide of immoral- 
ity by cutting off its supplies as it is yours. And I can see 
very clearly that if all men would refuse to sustain these 
vice-breeding associations they would dry up. And social 
intercourse would then, like some malarial swamp, cleaned 
out, cleared up, and made subservient to dry and whole- 
some culture, be a blessing to all around it. But if my 
more imbruted sex refuses or fails to do this great, good 
work, will you, O lovely daughters of Georgia, not help 
save our homes and the Church from the poison of evil so- 
cial customs that now reign in the fashionable world? I 
will, in hope, answer for my listening audience. You will 
say to us to-day : " Fast and pray for us, and when the 
time comes that all must be saved or lost that depends on 
us, although there may be some risks to us, if moral life de- 
pends on our taking the risk, w r e will screw up our courage 
to the daring point, and into this Thermopylae we will throw 
ourselves. And if we perish, we perish." But you will 
not perish. Esther immediately saw the golden scepter of 
peace held out to her, which she gracefully touched, and 
saw at once the star of hope emerge from beneath a dark 
and angry cloud that up to that auspicious moment had 
concealed its radiant face. 

In conclusion, ladies of Andrew Female College, let me 
assure you, in behalf of your faculty, the board of trust- 
ees, and of the South Georgia Conference — under the pa- 

19 



290 BISHOP PIERCE'S SERMONS AND ADDRESSES, 

ternity of which you derive your kinship of high affiliation 
with us — that,, in our opinion, your intended alma mater 
cannot attain to real glory except as her daughters become 
illustrious patterns and patrons of every Christian virtue. 
We mean to make you good scholars, if you will. But we 
are bound to notify you all in advance that you can be no 
cause of glorying to us unless you win for us, and also for 
yourselves, the high distinctions of sanctified learning. If 
your higher culture is not used for a wider range of in- 
tellectual inspiration as to the ways and means of doing 
good — by the wise use of your moral power and by the ex- 
ercise of moral courage up to the demands of well-devel- 
oped womanly integrity — then you are doomed to be looked 
upon by wise men as a failure. And it would have been 
better for you to have been educated in a cotton-factory 
than in a Christian female college. A highly educated 
woman who is openly irreligious is always loathed by 
good men. It is our high ambition to send out from the 
classic halls of Andrew Female College not jeweled women, 
but women jewels. Shall we do it? The affirmative an- 
swer, young ladies, is with you. Say yes. 

And now I commend you to God, and to the word of his 
grace, which is able to build you up and give you an inher- 
itance among all them that are sanctified. Amen. 



Mary's Love* 



"Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, 
and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair; 
and the house was filled with the odor of the ointment." (John 
xii. 3.) 

THE Bible is a wonderful book; wonderful in its rev- 
elations of God and of man. Much of its excellen- 
cy lies in this, that as a book of instruction it is not 
a theory, a speculation, a philosophy. It does not deal in 
general representations, but descends to particulars — not in 
abstract notions, but in practical effects. The Scriptures 
illustrate, embody, exemplify. They present principles as- 
sociated with character and conduct. The lessons we are 
to learn come to us not as the dry deductive inculcations 
of a teacher, but incarnated, alive, and in motion. The 
canvas on which the pictures are spread breathes, the forms 
are animate, and the expression is the life and language of 
humanity. What is the Old Testament but a narrative of 
great and interesting events — a book of maxims, proverbs, 
and imagery? What is the New Testament? A book of 
divinity? a system of theology? Nay; but a compilation 
of facts and reflections — God and Christ and humanity il- 
lustrated. 

From the day of his advent through all the stages of his 
earthly ministry, Jesus was hated and reviled by the scribes 

* Delivered at the Commencement of Wesleyan Female College, 
June, 1876. Also before the Florida Conference in 1877, and also 
at the rededication of Grace Church, Newark, New Jersey, in 1878. 
— Editor, 

(291) 



292 BISHOP PIERCE'S SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

and Pharisees, the chief priests and elders of Israel. Each 
of these classes of chief men and rulers, under the prompt- 
ings of their prejudice and passion, as occasion served, ma- 
ligned his character, denied his claims to the Messiahship, 
and denounced his miracles as the result of diabolical col- 
lusion. Two events now conspired to precipitate a culmi- 
nation of their rage. First, the resurrection of Lazarus, 
itself an overwhelming demonstration of Christ's divine 
power. " Then many of the Jews which came to Mary, and 
had seen the things which Jesus did, believed on him." 
The story and the interest it excited were likely to spread. 
When some of the witnesses of this transaction carried the 
tidings to the Pharisees, they held a council and said: 
"What do we? for this man doeth many miracles. If we 
let him thus alone, all men will believe on him." Second, 
the Passover — one of the great annual festivals of the Jews 
— was at hand. It was a national custom to execute great 
criminals — especially false prophets and raisers of sedition 
— on these occasions, because the concourse of people at 
Jerusalem was so great as to make the example admonitory 
and influential. 

This recognized association seems to have suggested this as 
a fit time to rid themselves and the nation of the despised 
Xazarene. xhe Sanhedrim met in council and resolved to 
take him by subtlety and kill him. The Avhole thing was 
to be clandestine, secret; not on the feast-day, lest there 
might be an uproar among the people. To what stratagem 
they meant to resort in order to make sure of their victim, 
and yet avoid a possible popular tumult, we are not told. 
Their thoughts were private, their plans unwritten. They 
intended to skulk as spies, to lie in wait and take their 
chance by day or night. 

While yet undecided but eager, fearful of miscarriage 
yet resolved on some desperate venture, Judas came with 



maby's love. 293 



his foul proposition to betray Jesus. This changed their 
plau. They accepted his offer, and struck a speedy bar- 
gain with the vile, money-loving traitor. But mark, the 
crafty policy of the council and the base design of Judas 
were both overruled by Heaven. It was not the purpose 
of God that Christ should be taken off by assassination, or 
even by regular trial in the presence of a few witnesses to 
his death and the signs which accompanied it. These cap- 
ital events which constitute the basis of our religion God 
intended should have a multitude of witnesses, that they 
should transpire when Jerusalem was thronged by Jews 
and proselytes from all parts, and that through them the 
accounts of the crucifixion and the resurrection should be 
transmitted to the most distant places. A religion destined 
to be the religion of the world must go forth authenticated 
by a great cloud of witnesses — Jews and Gentiles, friends 
and foes. 

While the Passover commemorated a wonderful event in 
the history of the Israelites, it was at the same time a grand 
institute and type cf our redemption. Hence, Christ is 
called " our Passover, sacrificed for us." It was eminently 
fit that the legal typical shadow should now cease in the 
presence of the true Paschal Lamb, who was about to give 
his life a ransom, not for the descendants of Abraham only, 
but for the whole world. 

Bethany, though now but a small and insignificant vil- 
lage, w T as, in the days of our Saviour, a considerable place, 
situated on the ascent of the Mount of Olives, about two 
miles from Jerusalem. It is canonized in sacred story as 
the residence of Martha and Mary and Lazarus, and as 
one of the favorite retreats where Jesus sought rest and 
retirement from the weariness of his public labors. Of this 
his last visit we have three distinct accounts by the evan- 
gelists Matthew, Mark, and John. Luke reports another 



294 BISHOP PIERCE'S 'SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

and distinct transaction, which has been strangely con- 
founded with the one under consideration. 

In this story Simon, the leper, gave a supper, and in- 
vited Christ and his disciples to be present. Christ, accord- 
ing to his custom, courteously accepted the proffered civility. 
The company was a remarkable one. There was Simon, 
the leper, healed and sound, himself a living witness of the 
miraculous power of Jesus. The man whom loathsome dis- 
ease had made an outcast, whom no one dared to touch, had 
been restored to his home and family, and was now T the gen- 
erous host of a feast that inspiration has made historic. 
There was Lazarus — once dead, now alive ; buried, but raised 
up ; yesterday a disembodied spirit, to-day robed in flesh and 
blood — a guest with his Deliverer in the house of his neigh- 
bor, and both the beneficiaries of his grace. There was 
Martha in her true character as well as proper person, her 
individuality distinct, consistent with itself. They made 
him a supper, and Martha served, and the service was at 
once the exponent of her constitutional complexion and the 
expression of her loving devotion. There too was Mary, 
serious, devout, contemplative; rapt in the fervor of an 
unearthly love ; subdued by the sorrows of a self depreci- 
ating penitence, yet aglow with the ardor of adoration, ob- 
livious of food and appetite and social festivity, intent only 
to lavish upon her Lord iu symbolic action the unutterable 
tenderness of her spiritual being. Words could not re- 
spond to her emotions, and tears became the interpreters of 
her sensibility. She could not tell the yearnings of her 
soul in articulate speech, and she invoked the aroma of an 
ointment, costly and precious, that the sweet perfume might 
translate her heart. Embalming the Saviour's head in 
liquid odors, the fragrant memorial of her love, in token 
of her humility she rained tears upon his feet, and, disdain- 
ing the fabrics of an earthly loom, she wiped them with 



Mary's love. 295 



the hair which God had given her for a covering and her 
glory. 

Now behold how this beautiful scene was marred by the 
unseemly indignation of the selfish and the censorious, who 
said: " Why was this waste of the ointment made? For it 
might have been sold for more than three hundred pence, and 
have been given to the poor. And they murmured against 
her." How subtle and specious the pleas of " covetousness ! " 
Judas was the mouth-piece of this hateful vice. But other 
disciples sympathized with him ; they had indignation within 
themselves. They said nothing, but accepted the language 
of Judas as the utterance of their thought. They looked 
their approval of his ill-natured censure and prudential 
suggestion Rebuked by the lavish generosity, the uncal- 
culating service of this godly woman, they cloak their grudg- 
ing selfishness by an affected, pretentious charity for the 
poor. They envied their Lord and Master, himself the 
poorest of the poor, the delicate and timely honor which 
the geutle Mary, with long self-denial, had garnered from 
her own scanty stores, and then seek to cover their base 
resentment by claiming an hypothetical benefaction for the 
needy. Alas ! an honorable sentiment, proudly announced, 
is not always the promise and pledge of corresj)onding ac- 
tion. 

Here the meek and lowly Jesus kindly interposes : " Let 
her alone; why trouble ye the woman? Why do you put 
her to pain? How can you so roughly wound her gentle 
spirit? She hath wrought a good work on me. You wholly 
misinterpret her conduct; even she does not fully under- 
stand the significance of her action. Taking counsel of 
her religious heart, her devotional sympathies, while my 
enemies with crafty malice plot my destruction, she has 
come to testify her faith and her worship. It is the custom 
of your country and surrounding nations to embalm the 



296 bishop pierce's sermons and addresses. 

corpse before interment, nor are they wont to be parsimo- 
nious in these honors to the dead. She hath done what she 
could, and has come aforehand to anoint my body to the 
burying. The poor ye have with you always, and when ye 
will ye may do them good; but me ye have not always. 
This is the last opportunity. When my decease is accom- 
plished there will be no time for this ceremonial. Events 
are about to transpire the most wonderful in the annals of 
time or the councils of eternity. The malice of men and 
the rage of Satan in fell combination are scheming for my 
destruction. The crisis is at hand. Yet a little while and 
my enemies will be jubilant over my dead body. My dis- 
ciples, smitten with terror, will fall from around me and 
stand afar off mute with grief and wonder, helpless and 
voiceless in their despair. Condemned, outcast, forsaken 
of God and man, suspended between heaven and earth as 
if unfit for either, without sympathy or friend, save as 
dumb nature responds to my agony in her darkened sun, 
her rending rocks, and the graves of her dead. Yet, when 
all is over and my resurrection shall rally the hopes of the 
Church, wherever this gospel shall be preached, this shall 
be told for a memorial of her.' 7 

This passage is suggestive and full of instruction. The 
first lesson is fundamental to Christian faith, and, where it 
is intelligently apprehended, constitutes an anchor to the 
soul, sure and steadfast, holding the mind steady and se- 
cure amid change and darkness, upheaval and revolution. 
" The Lord reigneth, let the earth rejoice," expresses it all. 
Amid the seemingly casual and distressing events which 
take place in the world through the avarice, treachery, am- 
bition, or impiety of mankind, it is well to advert to the 
determinate counsels and foreknowledge of God as bound- 
ing, directing, and overruling all for the establishment of 
his truth and the safety of his j)eople. How freely men 



MARY'S LOVE. 297 



can act, and yet how subordinately ! There is a divinity 
that shapes the means and the end, rough hew the mate- 
rials as we may. There is a real but inexplicable concord 
between human liberty and the certainty of those events 
which have been foreshadowed by prophecy, or which lurk 
unhinted among the secret things of God. Where divine 
veracity is concerned there is no contingency. The Script- 
ures cannot be broken. Providence marches with steady 
steps to the completion of its plans. Good men and bad 
men ignorantly but unitedly conduce to its methods. 

There are many devices in the heart of men and ungodly 
politicians, and covetous, ambitious Churchmen form their 
plans with profound sagacity, and conceal them with deep dis- 
simulation, yet often contrary to their intentions and their 
wishes they are led to arrange or alter them in subserviency 
to the secret will of Him who holds all hearts and all events 
in the hollow of his hand. As the great law of gravitation 
holds the worlds in their places, and rolls these enormous 
masses round through all the cycles of the ages without the 
loss of a second of time, and remains unjostled by the con- 
cussions of battles, the shock of earthquakes, the heaving of 
old ocean's restless waters, the rush of the wildest storms, 
and, as an ultimate law, binds the most eccentric comet as 
well when coming from the awful immensity of space it 
rushes with accelerated course toward the sun as when with 
lingering step it turns again to its far aphelion, so in the 
purposes of God there can be no surprise, perplexity, or 
chance. The laws of matter are but his sovereign will and 
their operations his continual agency, and the whole uni- 
verse of intellect is subject to his control. All the dis- 
cordant passions, interests, and designs which dash in eter- 
nal collision the designs of men, the ministry of angels, 
and the enmity of fiends as well ; all the activities of supe- 
rior intelligences are bound, in the contexture and har- 



mony of Providence, to bring about the result he hath or- 
dained, and to this end every occurrence irresistibly tends. 

In the history before us the chief priests who presided in 
all ecclesiastical affairs, the elders who were judges in civil 
matters, and the scribes who were doctors of the law and 
directors to both, were all confederate against Christ. By 
crafty plot they designed to kidnap and spirit him away, 
and thus slake their thirsty malice in his blood while yet 
they escaped the tumult of a possible popular indignation. 
In the grand purpose of Heaven, Christ came into the world 
to die, but not by midnight assassination. He came to suf- 
fer, "the just for the unjust," but not on conviction of crime. 
He came to die — not as the victim of Jewish or Eomish 
statutes, but as a sacrifice demanded by the law of God. 
And hence, in spite of the cunning malice and policy of his 
enemies, the glorious Sufferer stands, even in the records of 
a criminal court, as the spotless Lamb of God. The Jew- 
ish council broke down in the effort to sustain the charge 
of blasphemy; and the Roman tribunal, to which they 
turned, even when, for fear of the people, it surrendered 
him to death, declared, by the mouth of Pilate, it " found 
no fault in him." The mysterious counsel of the Lord was 
fulfilled by the free agency of man, and the voluntary, vi- 
carious offering of Christ on the cross is signalized by the sin- 
gular fact that he was tried for one offense and executed for 
another totally distinct. Kay, more ; he was not executed 
for the crime for which he was tried, nor tried on the charge 
for which he was executed. He died by the sword of the 
Lord, though the hand that wielded it was the hand of 
man. 

The Bible portraits of character are drawn in facts few 
and simple, but full of significance. These facts are keys 
which unlock every chamber of the soul, even the secret 
closets where lie hid perhaps the unconfessed yet plastic, 



mart's love. 299 



potent influences which make a man what he is. For as "a 
man thinketh in his heart, so is he." 

When the'devout and gentle Mary unsealed the alabaster- 
box and poured the fragrant ointment on the head and feet 
of her Lord, Judas, unaffected by the delicate, touching 
act of devotion, unregaled by the odor that filled the house, 
true to the base instincts of his nature, cried out, "Why 
was this waste?" 

Some men are dead to taste, to sentiment, to all high, 
noble, and self-forgetting impulses. They have no eye for 
the beautiful, no ear for the concord of sweet sounds, no 
heart for the tender outgushings of a noble nature. They 
live only among figures and dividends and percentage. No 
book like the ledger, and no page like the column of prof- 
its. With them the only question is, Will it pay? Is there 
money in it? Quick in calculation, they can tell you the 
profit or the loss. A prize to the worthy, a present to a 
friend, a memorial of the dead — it is folly, extravagance, 
waste. A generous offering for the comfort of another, a 
thoughtful recognition of family affection by a timely token 
outside of necessary supplies, a delicate memorial of es- 
teemed confidence, in those cases where sympathy is better 
than gold, and love more precious than rubies — all these 
are ruled out by that last, lowest affection of the human 
mind, the love of money. The sweet, subtle discernment 
of love is a lost attribute, and the dry, dark, dead soul 
wakes to no music but the ring of the precious metals, and 
inhales no fragrance like the aroma of a good bargain. 

The heartless complaint of Judas was a reflection on 
Christ as well as Mary, for he submitted without rebuke 
to this lavish expenditure. The querulous, ill-natured ques- 
tion was very rudely interposed. It was a breach of man- 
ners, an infraction of the law of charity, implying, if not 
imputing, blame on both sides. It intimated that the whole 



300 BISHOP PIERCE'S SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

transaction was an outburst of enthusiasm, an overwrought 
excitement, the waste of an ointment precious in its odor — 
more precious in its money value. It impeaches the Master 
for silently accepting the costly adulation of a frenzied 
woman. 

The solution of all this is to be found in the covetous 
heart of the traitor, who did not grudge the Master the 
honor of this anointing so much as he desired that the 
price of the ointment should be put into the bag which he 
carried as the treasurer of the disciples. The ugliest feat- 
ure of his detestable sin was the assignment of an honora- 
ble reason for his unseemly interruption — a specious pre- 
tense for grasping avarice, and a bad, base affection wrapping 
itself in the cover of an ostentatious philanthropy. O the 
deceitfulness of sin, the stratagems of hypocrisy, the blind- 
ing, infatuating delusions of covetousness! 

Our Saviour detects and exposes the sophistry of this 
self-complacent pleader, and forestalls forever the plausible 
but deceptious plea which declines a present, positive duty 
by the verbal, sentimental recognition of another, future 
and contingent. He teaches that works of mercy are not 
to be superseded by works of piety, nor works of piety to be 
declined under color of works of charity. 

Judas is not the only man who declines or reprobates a 
generous act by alleging what ought to be done for the 
poor, rather than what he has done or proposes to do. 
Many a man withholds from a present claim both needy 
and worthy more than is meet by fanciful conjectures of 
what may be demanded by some possible but very unlike- 
ly event in the future. This miserable self-deception may 
rid them of the importunity of application, but the equiv- 
ocal pretext debauches the conscience, defiles the heart, and 
entails upon them the guilt of mocking God by the imposi- 
tion they have practiced upon themselves and others. The 



mjmy's love. 



man who saves his money by cheating his own integrity 
drives a bad bargain where the gain is loss. Judas sought 
to have his bag replenished that he might pilfer without 
detection, inspiring his brethren to believe that out of a 
tender heart he had lavished the treasure upon the poor. 
He bartered his conscience for a chance to steal, and when 
balked in his scheme resolved to betray his Master. His 
hungry, short-sighted avarice, commanding the position and 
able to dictate the terms, surrendered its advantage, and 
accepted thirty pieces of silver as the price of his soul and 
the pay of his treason. Such are the contrarieties, the in- 
consistencies, the self-deceptions of human nature. 

Some lean on alms without prayer, others on prayer with- 
out alms. I have known men, liberal to the Church, who 
left their aged parents in want and suffering. I have known 
some who, when generous in their gifts, would reimburse 
themselves in keeping back by fraud the hire of their labor- 
ers. I have known many wonderfully pious in their talk 
wofully deficient in action. " I hear the voice of the words 
of this people. They have well said all that they have 
spoken. O that there were such a heart in them, that they 
would perform and keep all my commandments always, that 
it might be well with them and their children forever." 

The answer of our Lord in vindicating Mary reveals this 
great principle in religion : that God is entitled to the best 
we have and the most we can do. In all the statutes reg- 
ulating the services and sacrifices of his ancient people the 
Almighty required the first-fruits of the vineyard and the 
field, the best lamb in the flock ; and every offering was to 
be without blemish and without spot. Nor was this arbi- 
trary, the jealous exaction of absolute power, but the rea- 
sonable demand of the universal Creator upon the benefi- 
ciaries of his bounteous providence. When in the progress 
of time and the decay of piety the Jews, still recognizing 



302 BISHOP PIERCE'S SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

the law of demand upon their property, sought to commute 
with conscience by offering the sick and the blind and the 
lame, thus maintaining the show of piety while they econo- 
mized their gifts, a prophet was sent to denounce, in awful 
rebuke, their miserable mockery, their egregious trifling 
with conscience and duty, with God and devotion. They 
infracted a great principle, trespassed on the rights of God, 
in a mean effort to conserve their own. Alas ! in the serv- 
ices we render to Christ, and the gifts we lay upon his altar, 
a subtle casuistry presides over our determinations and reg- 
ulates our measure. The cool, calculating spirit that con- 
trols us indicates that what we do and what we give is not 
the gushing oblation of a loving heart, but the tardy, re- 
luctant, stinted obedience to the imperious exactions of law. 
It may be well to have systematic plans of beneficence, to 
give by rule, and yet a man may be too methodical in his 
charities, and acquit himself of obligation when he has 
barely fulfilled a contract. 

Put a guard upon your expenses ; reckon your givings 
by your income. I admire and commend the man who 
gives the tenth, yet more the man who gives a fifth, and 
most of all the man who, when he has given all, feels that 
he has not done enough. The man who is always master 
of himself, and counts his benefactions with slow and steady 
enumerations, careful not to exceed the stipulated limit, 
may be a helper at a dead lift in a church-collection, but 
he is too slow for the emergencies of humanity, and too 
calculating for the fervor of Christian consecration. Love 
— generous love — has its ardors and its transports, and, 
oblivious of self, and swept along by the tide of its emo- 
tions and inspirations, breaks over all the dikes and levees 
of a prudential policy, and leaves the loom of its treasures 
as the memorial of its passage. 

Mary did not uncork the alabaster-vial and distill the pre- 



MARY'S LOVE. 303 

cious ointment drop by drop, as if fearful of overdoing, but 
she broke the vessel, enlarged the outlet, and poured the 
contents with lavish affection upon the head and feet of Jesus. 
And now, when stingy economy and worldly thrift cried out 
in angry remonstrance, " Enthusiasm, extravagance, waste! " 
Jesus said: "Let her alone; she hath done a good work" 
— good for me, for she hath embalmed me for my coming 
burial ; good for her — her aching, grateful, groaning heart 
has found vent in this act of adoration, and her lavish love, 
unexhausted by this costly outlay, when I am crucified, 
shall be to her hallowed memory more precious than the 
ottar of a thousand roses. " She hath done what she could." 
Not much as men count values, but as a testimony of her 
gratitude, love, and worship, it shall smell to heaven and 
blossom in the dust. When the gospel is preached, this that 
Mary did shall be told for a memorial of her — bound up 
in the immortality of the imperishable record in which it 
shall be communicated. 

It is the fate of many good works to be misunderstood 
and undervalued, and Mary shared in this common lot. 
Once before when Jesus visited the humble home at Beth- 
any, and she sat at Jesus' feet, bathing her sweet spirit in 
the soft sunshine of the Saviour's love, her heart throbbing 
and pulsing as his voice rose and fell in divine instruc- 
tion, her sister Martha broke in upon the heaven of her 
enjoyment with harsh complaint of alleged neglect. Now, 
Martha and Mary were both good women ; but they dif- 
fered in constitutional complexion, and the same principles 
in each wrought not in opposition but in distinct lines, and 
neither should have sat in adverse judgment upon the 
other. Martha's work was necessary and proper, but Ma- 
ry's choice was wiser and, all things considered, most ap- 
proved; and the one would not have been rebuked but for 
her complaint of the other. Let not the bold judge the 



304 BISHOP PIERCE'S SERMONS AND ADDRESSES, 

timid, nor the active the quiet and retiring. The unseen 
violet, nestling in its hidden retreat, scents the passing 
breeze as certain 1} T , perhaps more sweetly, than the gor- 
geous rose lifting itself in conspicuous observation. The 
gentle piety which sheds about the humble homestead the 
odor of a meek and quiet spirit is as dear to Christ as the 
public demonstrations of more sanguine and active natures. 
The dew-drop, trembling in the morning light upon the 
waving grass, is as much the work of God as the star that 
beams and burns in the heaven above us. 

Under her sister's fretful rebuke Mary remained silent — 
said not a word. Conscious of her integrity and purity of 
motive, satisfied that Jesus would rather break to her hun- 
gry heart the bread of life than regale himself with the 
dainties furnished by deft and dexterous hands, she sat at 
his feet and heard his word. The appeal against her was 
made to Christ, and to him she referred the matter, content 
to abide his award. Jesus sustained her choice, and ap- 
plauded the wisdom of it. " But one thing is needful, and 
Mary hath chosen that good part which shall not be taken 
from her." O that my hearers, one and all — especially the 
young ladies of the college — would imitate her example! 
Religion is the good part — no blessing like it. It is good, 
wise, needful. It is good in itself, and wiser than all be- 
sides; indispensable to every character and allotment of 
human life. Choose the service of God for your business, 
the favor of God for your happiness, and an interest in 
Christ as necessary to both. 

From this example and the one in the text let us learn 
two great lessons: First, not to condemn the pious zeal of 
any, lest we have Christ against us ; and second, not to be 
cast down if our pious zeal be censured, because we have 
Christ for us. 

Indulge me in one more comment upon this lovely picture 



Mary's love. 305 



of simple, elevated piety. I do not think it is generally 
appreciated in its design, motives, or beautiful expression. 
Mary's heart was stirred to its profoundest depths by min- 
gled emotions of gratitude, love, and fear. She knew the 
bitter hostility of the authorities of her people toward her 
gracious benefactor. She had heard their vindictive threats, 
and her mind was shadowed and tossed with the vague, 
ill-defined terror of coming evil. The presentiment of even 
a darker sorrow than ever yet had visited her home or 
heart hung heavy upon her spirits. And now, in the full- 
ness of her grateful love, she designed a special honor in 
attestation of her faith in him as the true Messiah and in 
humble, expressive acknowledgment of the spiritual benefit 
she had received. Often before her soul had slaked its 
thirst at this fountain of living waters, and she longed for 
another draught, sweet and deep and full. Her dead broth- 
er had been brought back from the grave by the word of 
Jesus, and her broken heart-strings, though reknit, were 
tender still from the rude touch of recent sorrow, and vi- 
brated keenly under the harsh words and threatened vio- 
lence of her Saviour's enemies. The happy consciousness 
that she and her brother and sister had a warm place in the 
affections of her adorable Lord roused her soul to courage 
as the shadow of Christ's destiny deepened and darkened 
around him. She wanted him to know that while the na- 
tion despised and rejected him one meek and gentle heart 
clung to him in confidence and sympathy. She wanted 
him to feel that though Church and State, Jew and Roman, 
cast him off as unfit to live there was one sad, bruised but 
heroic, devoted woman who thought nothing too good nor 
good enough to bestow upon him. In thoughtful, delicate 
kindness she planned her testimonial, and with womanly 
instinct seized upon the fittest opportunity to present it. 
When Christ fainted in the agony of the garden, an an- 
20 



306 BISHOP PIERCE'S SERMONS AXD ADDRESSES. 

gel came from the skies to strengthen him. Who shall say 
what comfort and satisfaction filled his soul, in prospect of 
pain, ignominy, and desertion, when this angel of earth, in 
testimony of her faith and love, mingled the perfume of 
her ointment and the incense of her adoration in heart-felt 
worship at this feet? Christ's own estimate of its value we 
learn from the immortality with which he has endowed it. 
John, in vision, saw an angel flying in the midst of heaven 
having the everlasting gospel to preach to them that dwell 
on the earth. To-day I show you the everlasting gospel still 
going about upon the earth with the alabaster-box of pre- 
cious ointment in its arms — a memorial of Mary's faith and 
worship, a type and a lesson to the Church in all the ages 
present and to come. 



The Inadequacy of Secular Learning.* 

"We will not hide them from their children, showing to the gen- 
eration to come the praises of the Lord, and his strength, and his 
wonderful works that he hath done." (Psalm lxxviii. 4.) 

THE majestic exordium to this pathetic and instructive 
discourse demands for it, alike from the aged and the 
young, a reverent welcome. "Give ear, O my peo- 
ple, to my law ; incline your ears to the words of my mouth." 
The term " law " is used in the sense of doctrine, instruc- 
tion. Solemn attention is challenged on the ground of its 
intrinsic excellence, its divine authority, its infallible truth. 
The lesson taught is denominated " law" because of its com- 
manding force in itself, and because every great truth re- 
ceived in the light and love of it has the power of law upon 
the conscience. Founding his instruction on this grand 
basis, the psalmist proceeds to group around it certain 
weighty considerations by way of enforcement. "I will 
open my mouth in a parable; I will utter dark sayings of 
old." 

Among the Orientals the parable has always been a pop- 
ular vehicle of thought and wisdom. With them the East- 
ern princes were accustomed to try each other's wit and inge- 
nuity. It was a courtly pastime. In them the learned men 
embodied their wisdom, and rested their reputation on these 
dexterous compositions. I suppose parables come under the 
head of " dark sayings" — not because they are obscure, sub- 

"" Commencement Sermon, at Emory College, Oxford, Ga., July, 
1870. — Editor. 

(307) 



308 BISHOP PIERCE'S SERMONS AXD ADDRESSES. 

tie, hard to understand, but because the meaning does not 
lie upon the surface, is not to be comprehended at a glance, 
but must be carefully looked into in order to bring its treas- 
ures to the light. In the great diamond-fields of the world 
the precious jewels do not lie scattered upon the ground, 
but imbedded in the earth they await the skill and imple- 
ments of the miner, who must dig and delve for their dis- 
covery. So here the sublime truths wrapped up in these 
mystic words must be pondered and pored over with the 
assiduity of a student's attention and toil; and when by 
searching we cannot find the bottom we must sit down at 
the brink and adore the depth. Such examinations will 
reveal much that we did not know, much which, on account 
of former feeble and indistinct conceptions, we did not ap- 
preciate, and open up a world for exploration that will ex> 
haust and repay the labors of a life-time. 

"Which we have heard and know, and our fathers have 
told us." Three reasons are stated here for giving ear and 
heed to these words. We have heard them. They are not 
novelties, new revelations, but consecrated transactions, 
household lessons. We have heard and know them. These 
things are of undoubted certainty ; there is no occasion or 
room for dispute. They are first principles, uncontroverted 
axioms. It would be an insult to God to deny them — an 
outrage on humanity to neglect them. They are our life 
and the salvation of our offspring. We have heard and 
known them, and our fathers have told us. They come to us 
not only as original principles settled in and by the law of 
nature, traditional ideas hoary with antiquity, but demand- 
ing honor, reverence, and regard on the ground of their an- 
cestral indorsements. " Our fathers have told us." These 
utterances come to us invested not only with the sanctity 
of venerable age, but the commanding obligations of pa- 
rental authority. 



THE INADEQUACY OF SECULAR LEARNING. 309 

The Israelites were frequently instructed to render their 
children by every means familiarly acquainted with the 
works and commandments of God ; and now, as the psalm- 
ist and his contemporaries had derived the benefits of this 
most useful information from their progenitors, he was de- 
termined for himself to induce others to transmit the same 
great facts and truths to the next generatiou, and thus suc- 
cessively to the end of time. This natural order was and is 
the divine plan for the transmission, diffusion, and perpetu- 
ity of truth in the world. Infidelity to this high trust had 
brought the judgment of God upon the nation ; and to res- 
cue the people from the sin and curse of rebellion, unbelief, 
and ungodliness, there must be a restoration of the ancient 
regime of religious instruction and training. 

It is a remarkable fact that on the subject of general ed- 
ucation the Bible is absolutely silent. Assuming that the 
necessities of the race, the desire of knowledge, the prompt- 
ings of ambition, the demands of citizenship, would regu- 
late this great interest, it has been left open as one of the 
prudential economies to be adopted, modified, and accom- 
modated to the changing phases of a progressive civiliza- 
tion. " The school question," as we call it, is now one of 
the great topics of popular discussion. Connecting itself, 
as it does, with the fortunes of the family, with our social 
relations and influences, with politics and government, it 
has long been one of the problems of statesmanship. The 
essential grade of scholarship, how to provide for it, how to 
reach the masses with it, whether it should be left to pa- 
rental responsibility or assumed as one of the proper, if not 
necessary, functions of the State, are all mooted questions, 
debatable and unsettled. 

The drift of public opinion, in my judgment, is in the 
wrong direction. I will not say that the value of educa- 
tion, considered as a personal endowment, is exaggerated, 



310 bishop pierce's sermons and addresses. 

nor that intelligence is not a necessary qualification of wor- 
thy citizenship, nor that the right of suffrage is not a per- 
ilous franchise in the hands of the ignorant and the stupid, 
but I do say that the system of education that eliminates 
the religious element is a Trojan horse, full of evil agencies, 
armed for treason, stratagem, and spoils ; and further, that 
taxation by legislative power, without the consent of the 
people, for compulsory education is an outrage on the rights 
of the citizen and an invasion of the domestic sanctuary 
utterly indefensible. As well establish sumptuary laws 
regulating the food, apparel, and furniture of the house- 
hold, as to determine by an arbitrary, indiscriminate law 
the teacher, scholarship, and associations of a parent's child. 
His rights are sacred and inviolable. ~No judicatory, vol- 
untary, self-constituted, or governmental, under cover of a 
speculative theory reputed wise and philanthropic, may as- 
sume to control in this one of life's most precious interests. 
This would be one of the " oppressions which make a wise 
man mad." 

The education of the child, I grant and maintain, is a 
parental duty. It is the entail of fatherhood. It is the 
right of the child. It is an obligation of the social com- 
pact ; a contribution due to the community of interest. It 
is demanded by the possible future relations and duties of 
the child, personal, social, and political. There is no pre- 
cept written by the finger of God on the tables of stone, 
but by his ordination it is an instinct of humanity — a com- 
mon, social law — which all men feel more or less, and to 
which, with rare exceptions, they respond as circumstances 
allow. After all the lamentations of some sentimental en- 
thusiasts on this subject, after all the formidable statistics 
they parade to rouse our fears and recommend their plans, I 
venture the remark that the world — that this country at least 
— is not likely to be damaged much by any thing like gen- 



THE INADEQUACY OF SECULAR LEARNING. 311 

eral neglect at this point. The State and the Church are 
both at work; local communities have their projects; pri- 
vate enterprise is busy; the public mind is aroused, and 
nothing hinders but causes against which no legislative sys- 
tem can provide. The vital force of this great cause is not 
spent nor tending to exhaustion. It is cumulative, gathering 
momentum by every revolution, achieving its own triumphs, 
multiplying its victories, and pushing on to universal em- 
pire. But education without religion, when the conquest is 
gained, will wield a barren scepter, and the reign of uni- 
versal knowledge will be the reign of universal corruption. 
The culmination of the arts and philosophy, of poetry, 
painting, and sculpture, in the history of Greece and Rome, 
was the date of their decline and fall. Their boasted civ- 
ilization was the carnival of crime and the sepulcher of 
their national greatness. 

The point I wish to make is that, while our great Father 
in heaven has given no precept, furnished no rule, his very 
silence, rightly interpreted in the light of what he did say, 
rebukes the conceited philosophy of those who propose to 
develop intellect, reform manners, elevate society, conserve 
the Government, by mere secular education. The divine 
idea seems to be that timely religious instruction is indis- 
pensable to the formation of right character, that preven- 
tion is easier than restoration, and that the antagonisms of 
error are to be neutralized by the preoccupancy of the 
mind with divine truth. Let me add that one of the agen- 
cies on which God proposes to levy for the more certain 
bringing about of the desired result has been overlooked, 
and that this neglect has been not only the loss of power 
on the right side, but the array of active, hostile elements 
of influence on the other. While the duty devolves first 
of all upon parents for obvious reasons, the obligation to 
cooperate reaches every conscience, levies upon every tongue, 



312 bishOp pierce's sermons and addresses. 

appropriates every appliance, interdicts all adverse interfer- 
ence, all lapse, all intermission. There must be line upon 
line — not divergent, not parallel, but in the same groove 
and in the same direction — precept on precept, uniform, 
harmonious, identical in authority and motive. " Here a 
little and there a little " — not a work to be lumped and dis- 
patched by a single service ; not one great exhaustive effort 
and then a long interval of silence and inaction, but a pru- 
dent, intelligent repetition ; now a set, formal task — anon a 
pleasant interjection among the events of household his- 
tory. And this law of the homestead is the law of the 
Church, the law of the school, the law of society, the law 
of all the generations of man. There is to be no paren- 
thesis, no antagonisms, no neutrality. 

Alas for the modern American heresy that religion is to 
be taught at home, and that the school has nothing to do 
with it! No, sirs; religion is to be taught everywhere, by 
everybody. The school-house must echo the lessons of the 
fireside, the teacher duplicate the father, and every day re- 
peat the instructions of the Sabbath. Religion is not an 
incident, a circumstance, a fraction, but a continuity, a life, 
an entirety. It claims the freedom of earth and air. It is 
not recluse, robed in unique vestments, rarely seen by the 
public eye, shut up in cells, lingering about altars to mutter 
the gibberish of superstition, but a free denizen of the field, 
the garden and the forest, the city and the country — every- 
where at home. Religion came, sent on a mission of love 
and mercy, and God gave her the freedom of the world. 
She claims every man and woman and child for her serv- 
ice. Every house is her home, every heart her temple. I 
mean hers by right ; and every effort to limit her range, or 
abridge her rights, or stint her claims, is a usurpation, a 
calamity to the people, a wrong to our race. 

The political theory which seeks to separate the scho- 



THE INADEQUACY OF SECULAR LEARNING. 313 

lastic training or the rising race from the Bible and prayer 
and the name of Christ, and to subordinate the rights of 
God, the laws of personal piety, and the responsibilities of 
parents to the prejudices of Jews and Catholics and infi- 
dels — you may call it republicanism or democracy, but, in 
the name of God, I pronounce it a damnable heresy, fraught 
with disaster, a shame to our civilization, and a curse to 
our liberties. I verily believe that any school system man- 
aged by the State is a grievous blunder, false in policy, de- 
moralizing in its sentiment, and mischievous — not to say 
fatal — in its results. The complications which surround 
this subject with so many embarrassments are not inherent 
in the subject itself, but grow out of the nature and princi- 
ples of our Government and the impartial relation of the 
Government to the whole people. The argument based on 
economy is powerless when we remember that that is a very 
expensive economy which saves at the sacrifice of a great 
moral duty. The policy cannot be right which necessitates 
for its maintenance the doing of a wrong thing. When 
Uzzah put forth his sacrilegious hand to steady the ark, 
imperiled by the stumbling oxen, God smote him in anger, 
and he died. What shall we say of the presumption of 
the nation that, under pretense of relegating religion to 
better hands, heaves the ark overboard, and, for the sake 
of progress, drives the empty cart along? The State cannot 
do my work as a parent, and ought not to try upon a plan 
which subordinates as secondary and out of place that 
which I have taught as primary and paramount and of uni- 
versal obligation. 

Now, let us see how, by a simple adherence to God's 
word, we avoid all difficulties and conserve all interests. 
We who insist upon the inseparable union of religion and 
education are apt to be understood as desiring to propagate 
sectarian ideas, denominational tenets, ecclesiastical dog- 



3M bishop pierce's sermons and addresses. 

mas, and the metaphysics of theology. Kay, verily; but 
simply to fulfill a duty grafted by the Almighty upon the 
parental relation, the obligations of citizenship, and the ties 
and interests of a kindred race. The text is clear on these 
four points: First, the things to be taught; second, the time 
and mode of communication ; third, the persons and parties 
who are to teach ; fourth, the gracious results which will 
follow. 

Of course I cannot particularize. I state general prop- 
ositions. The first great fact is the graud Bible announce- 
ment that in the beginning God created the heaven and 
the earth, with all which they contain ; that when nothing 
existed besides himself, worlds, angels, men, animals, came 
into being at his command. This fact is the basis of all 
science and all theology. It is a primal truth, the start- 
ing-point of all rational investigation, the key to all the 
arcana of nature, furnishing to a finite mind a reasonable 
account of what it fails to explain by referring to the in- 
scrutable possibilities of an infinite power. Modern sci- 
ence travails in agony to get rid of God ; and while not 
quite bold enough to deny him altogether, yet teaches doc- 
trines which make him expletive and unnecessary, saying 
that matter is creative, that life is the result of certain 
physical conditions, and that she is the universal mother 
from whose womb all things proceed. To forestall the ri- 
val claims of idols, false gods, and all the cunning crafti- 
ness of infidel philosophy, the Bible reveals the Almighty 
as Creator, Upholder, Preserver ; appeals to this fact as the 
ground of human confidence and the inspiration of human 
faith. 

O ye fathers and mothers of the land, ye are mortal, 
passing away ! Teach your children while you may that 
thev have a Father in heaven who made them and loves 



THE INADEQUACY OF SECULAR LEARNING. 315 

them, 30 that when you lie down in the grave you may be 
saved from the crushing sorrow of an absolute and universal 
orphanage. O ye presidents and professors and teachers, 
save, O save the rising race from the loneliness of an un- 
fathered world, from the gloomy horrors of an atheistic life, 
and the rottenness of a grave where the pulse of life beats 
no more! 

Connected with the great primary doctrine of God the 
Creator, teach your children that he governs what he has 
made; that all events, the vast and the minute, are under 
his control ; and that the laws of nature are but the fixed 
modes of his operation. So teach them that God's provi- 
dence shall be as real to their faith as the external creation 
is real to their senses. 

But in teaching our children the " law " and wisdom of 
God great stress must be laid on the work of redemption. 
This is the work of works, the wisdom of God, and the 
power of God. Tell your children the story of the " Word 
made flesh.'*' Tell it all; go back to the beginning; ex- 
pound the dispensations which are part of the record of 
God manifest in the flesh; show how God prepared the 
Church and the world for the coming of his Son ; begin 
with the first enigmatic promise — the dim, misty twilight of 
the coming day; the first intimation of deliverance, a faint 
streak of light amid the gloom of fallen, blighted Eden. 
Long time the light struggled wjth the darkness ; ray was 
added to ray as time rolled on, till by and by it broke 
forth a burning star, beaming upon the vision of dying 
Jacob. The once nebulous mist assumes shape and puts 
on its radiant garment, and from the horizon whence its 
earliest beams shone aslant begins to climb the sky; and 
patriarchs read in brighter line the hope of Israel, and 
successive prophets along the march of time strike their 



816 BISHOP PIERCE'S SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

harps with bolder hand, till at last earth's expectant ear 
is startled by the voice of one crying from the wilderness, 
" Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of 
the world ! " Tell the story of his life — his wondrous works, 
his more wondrous words, the death he died for the sins of 
the world. Tell of his resurrection, his ascension, his me- 
diation. Tell them the whole story of Jesus till they know 
him as their Redeemer and their all. 

And now, to the youth of this assembly let me say it is 
your duty to receive with eagerness and delight the relig- 
ious instruction which is offered you. As the earth drink- 
eth in the rain which cometh oft upon it, so let your minds 
absorb religious ideas and principles, and then, as in nat- 
ure's chemistry the moisture drawn by the solar ray comes 
up to nourish the roots and mature the plant, these sacred 
deposits of truth will feed your virtues, array your char- 
acter in the bloom and beauty of holiness, and ripen your 
soul for the garner of the skies. This institution was de- 
signed to be the exponent of the Church's convictions and 
the instrument of her usefulness to the youth of the land. 
Emory, like Joseph, has been a bough by the well whose 
branches run over the wall, and the benediction of Heaven 
has rested upon it, soft and pleasant as the morning dews 
that fell on " Zion's hill." Your trustees, your faculty, 
your preacher to-day, will all pass off the stage; age comes 
on apace; disease and death are reaping the field of life. 
You must take our places ; there comes a new generation 
whom it will be your duty to instruct. Qualify yourselves 
now for your task; get ready for your work. Remember 
your Creator now; become religious at once. Learn to 
love, admire, and to adore God. Set your hope in God ; 
no other anchorage will hold when the floods beat vehe- 
mentlv and the waves rush and war around vou. Be stead- 



THE INADEQUACY OF SECULAR LEABXING. 317 

fast — walking with God. Ballast your character with truth, 
and you may ride the waves of time and chance and revo- 
lution fearless of wreck and sure of the haven. Resolve to 
be good, and as a help and security labor to do good. The 
leading characteristic of a Christian is not enjoyment, but 
beneficence. 

My soul stands erect, rejoicing in the light of a great 
hope, as I look down the future and contemplate the glory 
of the Church. I believe we are on the eve of grand events. 
Light is breaking upon the pagan world ; the crescent pales 
before the light of coming clay ; Mohammedan power feels 
the paralysis of coming dissolution. The papal throne is 
rocking upon its base ; the shadows of that stupendous im- 
posture which wrapped the nations in darkness for a thou- 
sand years are rolling and breaking as in the light of free 
thought and national freedom the people are getting ready 
to shout that Babylon is fallen! 

[The preacher closed with a clear and eloquent statement 
of the great enterprises of the Church, her home and for- 
eign missions, the great societies that are scattering Bibles 
over the world, the Sunday-school and its manifold activi- 
ties, and drew a rapturous picture of the ever-increasing 
glory of Israel. The manuscript stops abruptly as shown 
above. — Editor.] 



Friendship with the World Enmity with Sod.* 

"Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship 
of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a 
friend of the world is the enemy of God." (James iv. 4.) 

THE Epistle of James is general, addressed to the twelve 
tribes scattered throughout the world. Among them 
was great diversity of moral character and condition. 
There were stout, inveterate unbelievers, full of prejudice, 
and active in their hostility to the gospel of Christ. Some 
were true Christians, poor and persecuted, needing the con- 
solations which the apostle administers. Others were mere 
nominal believers, united with the Church but corrupting 
it by their hypocrisy and worldliness. These are special- 
ly characterized and condemned in the language of the 
text. 

The Church has never been entirely pure. The gospel- 
net, when thrown, gathers in the good and the bad. The 
time of separation is not yet. The work of judgment is di- 
vine. It belongs to God to discern between the righteous 
and the wicked. The ministry sow the seed — good seed, 
the seed of the kingdom. In unguarded hours and in cov- 
ert ways an enemy — the great adversary — scatters tares. 
"Let both grow together till the harvest," is the Master's 
command. Meanwhile, although despairing of universal 
success, the ministry must so address the judgment and con- 
science of all and of each as to increase the number of the 

* Preached in the Methodist church in Sparta, Ga., Aug. 10, 1879. 
The sermon raised a great stir among Church-people who crave the 
world's liberty. — Editor. 
(318) 



FRIENDSHIP WITH THE WORLD. 319 

pure and the faithful. The state of the Church as a col- 
lective body is a subject full of interest, and of vast impor- 
tance as to its saving power among men and as to final is- 
sues; but the question of our individual salvation is yet 
more vital and absorbing. 

The Bible makes a broad distinction between the Church 
and the world, the flesh and the spirit. These " are con- 
trary the one to the other." They cannot be reconciled. 
The antagonism is radical and immutable. Yet the vain, 
wicked, and corrupting experiment of harmonizing the two 
goes on, perhaps in no age of the Church more boldly and 
with less disguise than now. Men and women, for the sake 
of interest and pleasure, and in the spirit of a cowardly 
conformity, are adopting the maxims and methods of the 
world, and so obliterating the lines of demarkation as to 
confirm the world in its follies and to demoralize the Church 
in its opinions and practices. 

"The world" is a term of frequent occurrence in the 
New Testament, and always of significant import. "We are 
not to understand by it the outward frame of things, the 
visible heavens and earth, but the inhabitants — what we 
call society, with its imperious fashions, its giddy dissipa- 
tions, its manifold follies. The apostle John, while he warns 
us and sets up an infallible test of judgment, at the same 
time defines the word in the following language: " Love not 
the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any 
man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." 
These affections are unlike. They are opposed. They can- 
not dwell together. The expulsive power of either excludes 
the other. If the love of the world dominates, the love of 
the Father is cast out ; for all that is in the world — the lust 
of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life — is 
not of the Father but of the world. In the same line of 
thought our Saviour used the term: (( If the world hate 



320 BISHOP PIERCE'S SKRMONS AXD ADDRESSES. 

you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye 
were of the world, the world would love his own ; but be- 
cause ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out 
of the world, therefore the world hateth you." At another 
time he said to the Jews: "Ye are from beneath, lam from 
above; ye are of this world, I am not of this world" — not 
in sympathy with its tastes or principles, its aims or ends. 
Now, these are strong declarations. Their meaning can- 
not be mistaken. They discriminate sharply between the 
religion of Christ and the world, with its things and its 
ways. 

The text implies that the world — the vain, vicious world 
—is to be found within the pale of the Church. Some 
have made a treacherous, profane, and unholy alliance with 
it, and the epithets employed to characterize them sound 
harsh and revolting, but milder ones would utterly fail to 
express the enormity of the sin condemned. In the lan- 
guage of the Scripture, idolatry is adultery. The friend- 
ship of the world is in the same category. The relation of 
the Church to God is often referred to under the idea of a 
marriage-covenant. He is the husband, she the bride. So 
Paul, writing to the Corinthians, said : " For I am jealous 
over you with godly jealousy ; for I have espoused you to 
one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to 
Christ." If we can comprehend and appreciate this image 
as the true exponent of the delicate relations betwixt God 
and the Church, no . professor of religion can fail to see in 
how many ways purity may be compromised, and with w T hat 
diligent circumspection he must avoid the very appearance 
of evil. 

It is a melancholy fact that there are many in the Church 
utterly oblivious of these great facts and principles. There 
are some vain, giddy people, not vicious perhaps, but carnal ; 
not immoral, nevertheless irreligious, They have no fixed 



FRIENDSHIP WITH THE WORLD. 



habits, or purposes, or principles. They float with the cur- 
rent, are carried about with every wind that blows — light, 
frivolous, unstable. They are "of the earth, earthy." 

There is another class. They have low conceptions of 
duty, large ideas of personal rights and liberties. They see 
no harm in many things against which the Church, in every 
age, has borne the strongest kind of testimony. Their 
"senses" have not been "exercised to discern good or evil." 
They walk in darkness and indifference. The truth is, they 
have never been converted, and as natural men and women 
they do not discern the things of the Spirit. 

Then, too, there are formalists, with vague notions about 
the Church and ordinances. These talk glibly of baptism 
and communion — pious enough for "forty" days to lay up 
a surplus and purchase indulgence the rest of the year. 
These are they who tithe mint and anise and cummin, and 
neglect the weightier matters of the law — judgment, mercy, 
and faith. They lavish their sensibilities on the outward — 
the non-essentials — until they have no heart left for self-de- 
nial or painstaking duty. 

Besides all these are those who cherish a liberal theology. 
They hold very accommodating doctrines, and their morals 
are molded not by the pattern shown us in the gospel, but 
by the conventional notions of the social life to which they 
belong. With them the sentiments of " our set " are of 
far higher authority than the deliverances of Sinai or Cal- 
vary. 

All such people as have been described in these state- 
ments indicate their moral status in various ways, and at all 
times, by taking their stand against scriptural and Christ- 
like fidelity to conscience and in favor of worldly conformity. 
If duty exposes to reproach, if difficulty makes obedience 
a task, a tax upon the will and Christian independence and 
faithfulness are to be maintained at a loss, why then they 
21 



322 bishop pierce's sermons and addresses. 

say in their heart? : "Adherence to right would be an un- 
reasonable exaction. God is not such a tyrant as to de- 
mand it. The Church that insists upon it is puritanical, 
superstitious, ultra, overrighteous." They do not believe 
in straight-jackets, arbitrary rules, or that unrelaxing rigor 
which drives a man along a given line in the face of a burn- 
ing furnace or a den of lions. Their theory of religion is 
flexible, consults flesh and blood, and allows fleshly wisdom 
to legislate for them — legalizing every compliance with 
worldly ways that would shun a cross or gratify the desires 
of a carnal nature. What is fashionable is a more con- 
trolling question than what is right. The friendship of the 
world is not to be jeoparded by intruding the claims of a 
Christian profession. Martyrdom for truth and righteous- 
ness did very well in the Dark Ages — the " old fogy times " 
— but would be a folly in our advanced civilization. At 
any rate, these people who are courting the world do not 
intend to forestall the marriage by magnifying the trifles of 
religion into consequence enough to disgust the liberal, the 
respectable, and the refined. 

Of course these people who live in the sunshine of the 
world's friendship never take rank among the witnesses of 
Jesus. If truth be derided, spiritual religion laughed at, 
they join with the mockers. If error becomes presumptu- 
ous and defiant, assailing all that is pure and of good re- 
port, they lift no voice in rebuke. Whatever their private 
faith and convictions may be, the circle of their chosen 
friends is not to be disturbed by thrusting the verities of 
Christianity upon their unwilling ears. They do not con- 
fess Christ before men. They would rather give up their 
place in the Church of God than to lose caste among the 
devotees of fashion by self-denial — by coming out from the 
usages of the world, and standing squarely up to the teach- 
ings of Christ. In the conflict of conscience with inclina- 



FRIENDSHIP WITH THE WORLD. 



tion, pleasure, honor, and profit carry the day. These are 
not dead to sin, not crucified to the world. The flesh, with 
its affections and lusts, dominates taste, choice, and action. 
A mess of pottage will bribe their conscience. The excite- 
ments, sensations, and dissipations of society interest and 
absorb them. They know more about amateur theatricals 
than about missions, enjoy festal concerts aud suppers more 
than revivals. They will pay more for an excursion than 
to build a church ; wonderfully active in getting up tab- 
leaux, rehearsing for a musical entertainment — " working for 
the Church," they call it — but they never attend a Church 
Conference or a prayer-meeting; never speak in love-feast or 
exhort a sinner to flee from the wrath to come. Poor souls ! 
they work upon the ark, but never enter in. They are 
counted with the Church, but live in the world and for the 
world. 

There is hardly a sin so gross or an evil so corrupting 
but that the world has something to say in its defense. 
Plausible pleas are made for suicide, duelling, gambling, 
horse-racing, prostitution, houses of ill-fame, the liquor traf- 
fic. If it were possible, they would deceive the very elect. 
The milder expressions of human depravity are not only 
defended but advocated — highly commended — and to cen- 
sure them is well-nigh a personal insult. Such is the sophis- 
try of passion, the deceitfulness of sin, that through obse- 
quiousness to sentiments and maxims of the world, the 
Church is relaxing her discipline, and the card-table, the 
theater, and the dancing-saloon find friends and advocates 
among the professed disciples of Jesus Christ ; and he who 
bought the Church with his blood is shamed and wounded 
in the house of those who call themselves his friends. 

The unfaithful wife is universally condemned. For her 
there is neither pity nor pardon. But the gay, fast, fash- 
ionable woman, who, forgetful of the proprieties of wedlock, 



324 bishop pierce's sermons and addresses. 



flirts promiscuously with men, and parades her sensuous 
charms for public admiration, while she may be the subject 
of .iharp criticism, is nevertheless tolerated, and holds her 
place in "society." So in the Church. Scandalous sin will 
exclude from membership, yet the doubtful compliances 
with the follies and demands of the world, now so frequent, 
are allowed — an ominous impurity. In Christian morals it 
must be remembered that to infringe upon principle to do 
a doubtful act is not merely an impropriety, but a sin. "He 
that doubteth is damned if he eat." " Whatsoever is not of 
faith is sin." He that sacrifices an honest doubt comes into 
condemnation for more reasons than one. He consents 
under a slight temptation to offend God to please himself, 
showing that under more powerful temptation he would 
yield to unquestioned transgression. His eye is not single. 
He does not aim to please God. The Divine will is no bar 
to self-gratification. His duty to God, his relations to oth- 
ers, the influence of example, are all subordinate to passion, 
to temptation, the impulse, the whim of the hour. Like 
the wanton wife, who trifles with her sacred obligations, 
these worldly people make light of their vows and cove- 
nants with the Church, and recklessly wound their Saviour 
in the house of his friends. These friends of the world are 
corrupting the Church, mortifying their pastors, and giving 
occasion to the enemies of Christ to blaspheme. The process 
of amalgamation goes on almost without let or hinderance. 
This discourse is intended as a caveat. Having stated 
the principles of the text and the characteristic features of 
those who are condemned by it, I propose to make an ap- 
plication of all to a single popular amusement — dancing. 
I select dancing as the more common, popular, the least de- 
fensible, and in some respects the most demoralizing. In 
the cities other expressions of the worldly spirit occur and 
abound. They are in the same condemnation. Dancing is 



FRIENDSHIP WITH THE WORLD. 325 

common to town and country. The evil is ubiquitous, per- 
vading all places and all grades of society. It identifies it- 
self with evil by its effect on mind, character, and society. 
Whatever its form, from the simplest to the most complex, 
round or square, private or public, my observation is that 
in spirit and tendency and effect it is inimical to every ele- 
ment of genuine religion. It is death to spiritual life. It 
is a profane intruder upon the sanctity of the Church. A 
dancing community is not religious ; will not be ; cannot be. 
Bishop Mcllvain told the truth — asserted an unquestionable 
maxim in religion — when a lady asked him, "Is it any 
harm for a Christian to dance?" and he answered, "My 
sister, a Christian never wants to dance." He, she has no 
heart for it. It is a forbidden thing — unsuitable, incongru- 
ous, out of character. The desire for it is proof either that 
we never were " renewed in the spirit of our minds " or that 
we have forfeited the grace of God, and are backslidden. 
To patronize it, to defend it, to advocate it, is to take side 
w T ith the world against Christ. Nobody ever knew a very 
religious person to engage in it. 

I confess that I have no patience with it, no toleration of 
it. I think it is the silliest, most nonsensical amusement that 
rational beings, so called, ever engaged in. It is heathenish 
in its origin — a pastime of savages. It is a part of idola- 
trous worship — lewd, sensual, obscene. This is its history. 
It appeals to the lowest instincts of humanity, and is the 
chosen sport of the vilest, most imbruted of our race. The 
slum of society everywhere revel in it. It is wicked, vile 
in its origin, yet worse in its lower associations, and most 
of all in its last analysis. It has been refined, polished I 
grant, but it cannot be dignified nor elevated. The venom 
of the serpent is in it. The taint of its birth, the virus of 
its constitution is ineradicable. It is evil, only evil, and 
that continually. 



328 BISHOP PIERCE'S SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

No one claims for it a place among the agencies for pro- 
moting piety. No one has ever been made better by it ; it 
is not so designed or expected. It is a carnal enjoyment, 
simple and uncompounded. The public estimate of all 
Church-members who engage in it is lowered. Take any 
man noted for his piety, any saintly woman. Introduce 
them in a dancing-saloon, and let them " trip the light, fan- 
tastic toe." The sight would be a shock even to the bad. 
Everybody would feel that there had been a fall, a sad de- 
cline of integrity, a disgraceful betrayal of the Church and 
of Christianity. For some people to do this would excite 
no surprise — nothing was expected of them; but for those 
of real Christian reputation to mingle in these follies would 
be in the Church, and among the decent sinners of the land, 
an occasion of sorrow, regret, and shame. The universal 
feeling would be that religion had been outraged and sound 
morals damaged by the unfortunate example. 

There is nothing intellectual about it to redeem it. A 
dog, an elephant, a monkey can learn it. The fact is, take 
away the glamour of fashion — the countenance which men 
and women of culture give it — the Avhole thing would be 
contemptible, and would go into desuetude in all respect- 
able society. I confess to no little humiliation that our 
weddings, dinners, suppers, picnics, levees, entertainments 
for friends and visitors, are so many of them degraded by 
this heathenish, idolatrous, barbarian pastime. It is a re- 
flection upon our intelligence — as if we could not be polite 
and entertaining without a " hop." What a name for an 
adult amusement ! Come, we have exhausted refreshments 
for the body and topics for thought and talk, let us be chil- 
dren, play the fool, and " hop." Alas ! to think that the 
Church of Christ is represented on these occasions. Incon- 
sistency is the softest word the truth allows in speaking of 
the shameful treatment of a holy profession. 



FRIENDSHIP WITH THE WORLD. 327 

It is to be admitted that there are differences as to time, 
place, and company. I am told that there is a difference, 
as the names imply, between round and square dances; so 
also between the simple cotillion and the intricate and vo- 
luptuous waltz, between parlor dancing and the masque 
ball. But the truth is, they are all related — blood kin. 
The family is one. Private dancing is the prelude and 
preparation for public dancing. The simple leads to the 
complex, and the delicate to the gross. The passion grows 
by indulgence. For this reason I include those parents 
who teach their children to dance in the same condemnation 
with the more open transgressors, who misrepresent their 
Saviour, outrage the moral sentiment of the Church, and 
herd promiscuously with the world of the ungodly. The 
knowledge of the art involves the temptation to indulge it. 
Indeed, this schooling is a preparation for it — a provision 
for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof. The girl whose agil- 
ity and grace are admired in the circle of private friends 
will long to display her charming accomplishments in public. 
"Would a thoughtful parent commit the manners and mor- 
als of his children to some strolling, transient master of 
mazes and positions if he did not desire and intend them to 
shine with eclat in the giddy throng of the vain, frivolous, 
and worldly? Expecting them to love the world and its 
follies, they insure this morally disastrous result by a train- 
ing that leads naturally to it. The friendship of the w T orld 
is too precious a boon to be foregone, though the price of it 
be the loss of divine favor and the enmity with God ; for 
whoever will be the friend of the world is the enemy of 
God. 

Now 7 , bearing in mind that the Church stands related to 
Christ as the spouse to her husband, what shall we say of 
the license and freedom with which so many of her mem- 
bers mingle with the world? How indelicate! how sus- 



328 BISHOP PIERCE'S SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

picious! what occasion for sneer and criticism and damag- 
ing rumor ! As the wife, by the wantonness of her behavior, 
reproaches her husband and smirches herself, even when 
she has not descended to absolute infidelity, so these loose 
members discount Christianity and mar Christian fellow- 
ship. When they joined the Church they promised to "re- 
nounce the devil and all his works, the vain pomp and glory 
of the world, ... so that they would not follow or be led by 
them." Into this solemn covenant they entered voluntarily, 
understandingly. It Avas an oath, in substance, binding the 
conscience. The Church accepted the pledge and promise, 
and enrolled them as disciples. In the sight of God and 
in the presence of witnesses the betrothal was made, the 
formula having sacramental sanctity and force. 

" O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you that ye 
should not obey the truth ? " — fulfill your obligations, re- 
deem your promises? These world-courting, pleasure-seek- 
ing professors of religion, who esteem the favor, friendship, 
and praise of men above fidelity to Christ, are in a painful 
dilemma at the bar of conscience. If they were insincere 
when they took these holy vows before God and his people, 
then they deceived the Church, played the hypocrite, lied 
to the Holy Ghost. Their sin is aggravated. Their very 
profession is a falsehood. If they were honest — meant what 
they said — then their friendship with the world is perfidy 
to Christ. They have denied their Lord and Master and 
gone into strange alliance with his enemies. 

The moral character of all the association w 7 hich the text 
and the sermon condemns is determined by the fact that 
they who go into them intended to conform to fashionable 
society, to court the world, to gratify the flesh. They did 
not design to honor Christ, to glorify God, to promote their 
own salvation. These things were not in all their thoughts. 
Their motives were secular and selfish ; their policy is car- 



FRIENDSHIP WITH THE WORLD, 329 

nal. They consented to sacrifice their honest doubts, to 
break over the rules of the Church, to grieve the Spirit, in 
order to please ungodly friends and to gratify the lusts of 
the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life. These 
things cannot be defended, and ought not to be tolerated. 
No use to argue or deny — they are inconsistent, unscript- 
ural, and corrupting. No Christian society can long sur- 
vive their allowance. In prophetic imagery, the earth will 
swallow the woman instead of the flood. The distinction 
which God ordained between the Church and the world will 
be obliterated, and the tide of ungodliness w T ill sweep on, 
burying the hope of the good, and bearing the world farther 
from God and salvation. 



The Portrait of a Friend and Helper, 



DE. BASS : At the request of the trustees I rise to re- 
spond to your remarks, and to accept in their name 
the gift you propose to commit to their keeping. I 
should be embarrassed if I did not feel and believe that 
but little is expected of me, and that but little is necessary. 
That unveiled portrait itself responds to the eyes of all 
this audience. Look at it. What benignity of expression! 
What firmness and decision in those lines and features! 
How candid and transparent the working of the brains 
that lie behind that open brow ! How warm, generous, and 
loving the heart which beams from that radiant face! That 
face is the revelation of the man. I do not know him per- 
sonally. It has never been my privilege to meet him. I 
only know him from his local reputation and his multiplied 
acts of liberality. - That face, however, is legible. The 
veriest tyro in physiognomy can read his character. Every 
line attests the justice of the popular verdict. He is a man 
of simple, unaffected piety, of sterling integrity, of incor- 
ruptible purity in private and public life. A man of won- 
derful business acumen, broad-minded, well-balanced, large- 
hearted, conscious of his responsibility, he lives and works 
and gives under the great Task-master's eye. With that 
sagacity which characterizes his business methods he selects 

* In response to the remarks of Rev. W. C. Bass, D.D., President 
of Wesleyan Female College, upon the unveiling of the portrait of 
Mr. George I. Seney, of Brooklyn, New York, a princely friend and 
munificent helper of Christian education. The ceremony occurred 
during the Commencement exercises, June, 1881. — Editor. 
(330) 



THE PORTRAIT OF A FRIEND AND HELPER. 331 

his own beneficiaries, and dispenses his gifts with wonderful 
frequency and abundance. He seems resolved to be his 
ow T n executor. He does not toil to accumulate, piling thou- 
sands on thousands, adding fortune to fortune, waiting till 
death relaxes his power to hoard or to hold, and then seek 
posthumous reputation by testamentary bequests always lia- 
ble to misapplication and abuse. While yet living he dis- 
tributes his bounty. He sows his seed with a liberal hand, 
and like an honest husbandman waits hopefully and pa- 
tiently for his harvest. 

Allow me now to make a remark on my own responsi- 
bility. I know not how you or others may receive it. It 
may pass at best as my tribute of respect to a worthy name 
and a noble man. 

I have always deplored the necessity which constrained 
us to drop our original title — Georgia Female College. I 
liked that. It was broad, popular, appealed to the public 
spirit of our entire citizenship. When under pressure of 
financial difficulties the trustees changed the charter and 
the name, I was grieved in spirit. I am an intense Meth- 
odist, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, but I never fancied the 
cognomen Wesleyan Female College. Mr. Wesley I honor 
and revere. He does not need this recognition to perpetu- 
ate his renown. He belongs to history. His is one of the 
few immortal names which were not born to die. As an 
instrument of Providence, I regard him as the foremost 
man of all ages. " Wesleyan " is too common ; it is not 
" distinctive." We have a dozen Wesleyan male and fe- 
male colleges, institutes, and seminaries in our broad terri- 
tory. Withal it smacks of sectarianism. It is narrow, a 
little too specific, a bid to prejudice on one side and a bar 
to patronage on the other. It is suggestive of denomina- 
tional aims — aims which I approve, and which I would not 
ignore or disguise. Making Methodists is a very good work ; 



332 BISHOP PIERCE'S SEBMOXS AND ADDRESSES. 

but I would not state this as an objective end. We have a 
higher purpose. We propose to sanctify education, to per- 
meate our civilization with the gospel element, to bring the 
heart and conscience and sentiment and imagination of 
womanhood into harmony with the spirit and plans and 
kingdom of Christ. 

I come neither to " praise " nor " bury " Mr. Seney, but I 
desire to honor him worthily and permanently. He is, I 
learn, a plain, direct, practical man — has no heart for form 
and pageantry. I doubt if he would enjoy the ceremonial 
through which we are passing now. I speak only for my- 
self; I know the partiality of memory and association, and 
the reluctance to change, but I would be glad when yonder 
architectural pile shall be reconstructed, adorned, and beau- 
tified by the princely gift of our friend, to see emblazoned 
in bold letters on marble tablet, high upon the front, Seney 
Female College. If you cling to the old and honored famil- 
iar name, then endow the president's chair, and call it the 
"Seney Professorship." Either would be a compliment 
worth something. It would endure when yonder portrait 
has faded into invisibility, and when your resolutions of 
thanks " have gone glimmering through the dream of things 
that were." 

This occasion suggests several things. Indulge me in a 
brief comment on two only. 

The war left our colleges fearfully impoverished. They 
have had a struggle for life. Apprehension has dominated 
the public mind as to the possibilities of the future. It was 
feared that competition, debt, and the poverty of the peo- 
ple would break us down. If we asked for money, men felt 
that it would be wasted and lost ; that it would go into a 
sinking fund — not for the payment of debt, but merely to 
eke out a doomed existence. Mr. Seney's gift has rein- 
spired the hopes of the strong and the brave, dismissed the 



THE PORTRAIT OF A FRIEND AND HELPER. 333 

fears of the timid and the despondent, and tranquilized 
the public mind with a feeling of confidence and security. 
He did not say,. " Be ye warmed and filled," but he has 
put us on our feet and made us capable of self-support. He 
has rescued us from the waves where we were likely to per- 
ish, and brought us safely to the shore. Now the whole 
land lies before us. May we have grace to go up and pos- 
sess it! 

In these latter years we have heard a good deal of fra- 
ternity. It is a choice word and a good thing. The term 
has been upon the lips of the politician and the Churchman. 
Long since war's loud alarm has been hushed to silence ex- 
treme men North and South have sought to keep up sec- 
tional strife. Some of you know that I have never taken 
much stock in what has been called "formal fraternity." 
I have looked upon it as a sham and a fraud. I do not be- 
lieve in that fraternity begotten of a motion in a private 
caucus or public assembly, negotiated through commission- 
ers by compromise, contract, and covenant, and indorsed by 
legislative enactment. I believe in that fraternity which is 
spontaneous, the outgrowth of the heart, born of love — love 
to Christ, his Church, and humanity. I feel assured of my 
religion because I love all who love the Lord Jesus. I mean 
nothing invidious by the remark. I simply state an historic 
fact. The masses of the North have been grossly ignorant of 
the South, her people, and her institutions. They do not come 
to see us, they do not read our papers, and they have been de- 
ceived and betrayed by vindictive, malignant men, who have 
slandered us for the vilest partisan purpose. But we are in 
the early twilight of a better day. Various Northern men, 
representing Church and State, have visited our section, 
seen our public men, mingled with us in social life, seen and 
heard for themselves, and they have written some clever 
things about us, and assuaged the asperity of prejudice, 



334 BISHOP PIERCE'S SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

modified public opinion, inaugurated a revolution of ideas. 
One of our own men, by speech and pen, has given more 
rapid motion to the wheel of reform. But Mr. Seney, like 
the widow in the gospel, has done more than they all. 
His spontaneous, unsolicited, munificent contribution to 
education in the South has bridged — I will not say the 
"bloody chasm," but the chasm of mutual alienation and 
prejudice and distrust which yawned between the sections. 
His bridge is no pontoon affair for temporary use — a frail, 
transient, portable, movable thing — but a solid structure, 
with sturdy buttresses and ample span and graceful arches ; 
and the people on either side may come and go, assured of 
a welcome, home, and fellowship. 

And now, sir, let me say we will guard your gift, photo- 
graph that portrait on our memories, enshrine Mr. Seney in 
our hearts and our prayers, and if he will come to see us — as 
I trust he will — lavish upon him, out of honest love, all the 
attention and kindness which a refined propriety will allow, 
and make him feel that the recipients of his bounty, if not 
deserving:, at least are grateful. 



Moral Principles the Only Mepard * 



" He that walketh uprightly walketh surely." (Prov. x. 9.) 

TO a preacher it is a serious question what subject is 
best suited to an audience and an occasion Jike this. 
Is a commencement sermon a mere compliment to 
Christianity as a religion recognized in the principles of 
our Government and by the great body of our citizens? 
Do we by religious discourse and devotional exercises sim- 
ply mean to dignify the exercises which are to follow? or is 
the reason for it to be fouud iu the relation of man to God 
and in the evident need of religious influence and divine 
aid in the responsible work of education, the development 
of* mind, the formation of character, the preparation of the 
young for honorable citizenship? This service, as I under- 
stand it, is not a ceremony without reverence or heart or 
object, but the homage of faith in God and his revelation, 
a formal acknowledgment of our dependence upon the prin- 
ciples, motives, and obligations of our holy religion for the 
achievements of the past, the progress of the present, and 
all the precious hopes of the future. It is nevertheless a 
painful discount upon the interest of the hour that most 
people stress the style, the elocution, the oratory of the 
speaker far more than the appropriateness of the subject, 
the fitness of the truth delivered, or the moral results that 
may follow. They are more eager for literary entertainment 
than for a religious banquet; more concerned for the eclat 
of a splendid sermon than for the enlightenment of con- 

- A Commencement Sermon, delivered at Wofford College, June 
8, 1884.— Editor. 

(335) 



336 BISHOP PIERCE'S SEBMONS AND ADDBESSES. 

science or the furniture of a holy life. Even the Christian 
people of an audience like this at such a time come together 
without desire or expectation, forget to pray, and are con- 
tent with a respectable discourse on almost any theme. 
Hence, special sermons are an embarrassment to me. Ac- 
customed to follow my impressions in the selection of a text, 
it is not pleasant to rely upon a dry judgment of what is 
simply fit, appropriate. Besides, I miss the sustaining sym- 
pathy of a spiritually-minded congregation in communion 
with God, looking and longing for revival power. God is 
witness I never did prostitute the pulpit to any selfish, car- 
nal, personal end. I am too old now to waste time in mak- 
ing reputation or courting praise. I propose a simple, prac- 
tical discourse. If I cannot inaugurate a revival, I desire 
to furnish rules and motives for high, honorable, safe mor- 
al action. The Lord help us to plow close and deep, break 
up the fallow-ground, sow with a liberal hand well-chosen 
seed, assured that the reaping-time will come. 

Upright is a strong word. It is of frequent occurrence, 
and always of high and interesting import, in the sacred 
Scriptures. It is synonymous with the strongest terms, de- 
scriptive of high, pure moral character. " Mark the per- 
fect man, and behold the upright; for the end of that man 
is peace." Perfect and upright — the terms are interchange- 
able and mutually explanatory. To realize the force of 
the word in its full meaning and comprehension we must 
remember that man is a fallen being. Naturally humanity 
lies prostrate — prone in the dust. To be upright a man 
must rise and stand upon his feet, perpendicular, looking 
upward. The Greek word " anthropos" describes a being 
whose eyes are turned heavenward. The native majesty of 
man in his physical structure — erect and gazing into the 
sky — is but a faint symbol of a soul just, honest, pure. Ad- 
herence to justice in social dealings, conformity to rectitude 



MORAL PRINCIPLES THE ONLY SAFEGUARD. 337 

as between man and man, both in principle and conduct, 
may be predicable even of the unregenerate sometimes ; but 
in its highest intent and aim, in its widest scope and purest 
application, we must consider the term "upright" as includ- 
ing the enthronement of God's law as the rule of right over 
conscience and will, the sanctity of motives deriving their 
inspiration from the desire to please God, an integrity of 
purpose and action which looks for its ultimate reward in 
the approval of the final Judge and the associations of the 
blessed in heaven. 

"He that walketh uprightly." Walking takes in the 
whole of our conversation or conduct. It is not an action 
simply, but a course of action ; not an incident but a habit. 
To say that a man walks in pride is to say that he is full 
of it. It is his spirit, his way, his element; he is wholly 
under the influence of it. It inspires, dominates, controls 
him. So here walking uprightly implies settled convic- 
tions, well-defined principles ; a steady, invincible purpose ; 
a single aim, undivided ; turning neither to the right nor 
the left, looking right on to the chosen goal. My observation 
is that this is the weak point in modern society — the ab- 
sence of plan, purpose, principle. The people seem adrift, 
without chart or compass, driven by the winds, tossed by 
the waves, floating with the current; creatures of circum- 
stance, company, custom; molded by fashion, manipulated 
into any shape by accident ; without self-government, plia- 
ble, venal — on the market, advertised for sale. These peo- 
ple are not wicked by direct choice ; they do not prefer to 
do wrong; but they are irresolute, undecided; traitors to 
their own high, self-determining power, they have never re- 
solved to do right. They live promiscuously. Like a vessel 
at sea, steering for no port, who can tell whether the winds 
are favorable or unfavorable ? If a man travels at random, he 
may move, but he does not journey; it makes no difference 



338 BISHOP PIERCE 'S SEBMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

whether he draws back or turns aside, he makes no real 
progress unless he advances toward some particular jilace 
which he wishes to reach. 

To be rational, manly, Christian, a man must have a fixed, 
governing aim, regulated by the fear of God, the love of 
virtue, and the hope of eternal reward. This will simplify 
his conduct, arrange his actions, and give every thing a 
relation. This will give unity to character and conduct, 
economize time and power, prevent waste and loss. Paul 
said, *' 4 This one thing I do." He did not mean oneness of 
exertion— for he did a thousand things — but a oneness of 
purpose which combined them all and gave them the same 
direction. If a man depart from the course prescribed by 
righteousness on any account, if he infracts his rules of 
moral living at any time for any reason, if he infringes upon 
principle to carry out any calculation of interest or honor or 
pleasure, then come distraction, perplexity, confusion. The 
foundations are unsettled, the building totters, and, most 
likely, great will be the fall of it. The consent to recon- 
sider the principles, rules, and methods of an upright life 
is the surrender of the fort. Beadjustment is always mal- 
adjustment. "Their heart is divided," said Hosea, "now 
shall they be found faulty." "A double-minded man is 
unstable in all his ways," said an apostle. " No man can 
serve two masters." So said Jesus. Integrity, stability, 
uprightness there must be, or there can be no excellency, no 
character; for character is the effect and force of habit, and 
habit is produced by constancy, consistency, persistence on 
a given line. " Those that be planted in the house of the 
Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God." A tree often 
transplanted, even to more congenial soil and position, will 
be fruitless — nay, will droop and wither and die. Better 
be obstinate than versatile — the one may be guided and 
will go on ; in the other there is nothing to guide and noth- 



MORAL PRINCIPLES THE ONLY SAFEGUARD. 339 

ing to expect. You may build upou a rock, but what can you 
do with a mound of sand ? Let me say to those who are 
beginning the career of life, it is indispensable to lay down 
the principles on which we are to form our general conduct. 
If we set out without principles of any kind, there can be 
no regular plan of life, nor any firmness or consistency of 
conduct. No person can know where they are to find us, 
nor on what phase of our character they are to depend. 
These are clouds without rain, wells without water — deceit- 
ful and disappointing. So if the principles which we adopt 
be of a variable nature — such as popular opinion, reputa- 
tion, or worldly interest, as these are often shifting and 
changing — they can give no assurance of steadiness; nay, 
rather they make provision for vacillation and instability. 
Equally unfortunate and exposed, if not criminal, are they 
who, with great swelling words of vanity, rely on a sense 
of honor, on the beauty and excellence of virtue, and the 
dignity of human nature. These are plausible words ; fal- 
lacious sentiments, they sound well ; seem to exalt and en- 
noble ; but they are meretricious and delusive, the oily utter- 
ances of hypocrisy, the artful covering spread over the pit- 
falls of vice. To the currents of passion they are dikes of 
sand, temporary checks serving only to accumulate volume 
and power for a more desperate plunge when the obstruc- 
tion gives way. The conservative influence of simply hu- 
man, prudential — ay, honorable — ideas is too slight a liga- 
ture to bind one to virtue when appetite clamors, and habits 
urge, and the easily besetting sin pleads for indulgence. 

I must not blink the statement— nay, I wish I could 
stamp it in ineffaceable letters upon every conscience — that 
the only sure principles for regulating our life must be 
founded upon the Christian religion, taken in its whole com- 
pass of authority, motive, and sanction. The religion that 
is to keep us and save us must not be eclectic, fragmentary, 



340 BISHOP PIERCE f S SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

select, patch- work aesthetically arranged like a " missionary 
quilt of a thousand pieces," but an entirety, a unit, like 
the Saviour's garment without seam from top to bottom. 
Not periodical, limited to particular acts of devotion, or 
the mere moralities of social behavior, but pervading the 
-whole of our conduct toward God and man. It must sanc- 
tify the heart and the home, permeate the fellowship of the 
community and the responsibilities of citizenship; must 
accompany to the court-house as well as the prayer-meeting, 
direct at the ballot-box as at the communion-table; there 
must be Christian voting as well as Christian giving, and 
life's daily toil be as moral and religious as the Sunday rest 
and the Sunday worship. The fear of God must preside in 
awful magistracy over our public walks and our private 
ways. The foundation must be laid in Christ as the Sav- 
iour of the world, and that faith justified by good works. 
The love of God must be supreme, dominant, subordinat- 
ing all other affections, and around it must cling as the ivy 
to the tree the love of our neighbor. In a word, " he that 
walketh uprightly" must have a religion that is an insep- 
arable element of character incorporated with all his hab- 
its of thinking, feeling, and acting, moving him all the 
while with the force and accuracy of instinct. 

Now, let us consider some of the advantages indicated 
by the expression "walketh surely." First: An upright 
walker is sure of finding his way. It requires no reach of 
wit, no acumen of judgment or depth or breadth of inquiry, 
no plodding study, to discern what is just, to determine what 
is right. A man has only to open his eys and there lies 
open to his view the plain, strict, obvious road of duty; on 
his sign-board, in legible characters, he may read the way 
to which Reason's index-finger points unerringly. 

The ways of craft and iniquity and all ill designs are 
always obscure, perplexed, and intricate ; they are infinitely 



MORAL PRINCIPLES THE ONLY SAFEGUARD. 341 

various and utterly uncertain, so that to pick among them 
is a puzzle which confounds society and turns us over to 
the perilous hazards of the merest chance. They deny us 
the poor advantage of choosing the least of the evils ; and 
where all are wrong and bad, the worst is apt to be selected. 
But the ways of truth, of right, of virtue are simple and 
uniform, easy to find, free from obstructions — " a w T ayfaring 
man, though a fool, need not err therein." Divine wisdom 
has engineered these routes of moral travel — not for the 
great, the experienced, the subtle, but for the common peo- 
ple — the lowest capacity, being designed to " make wise the 
simple," to give "the young men knowledge and discre- 
tion." The right way is an air-line without curves or grades, 
a highway, "a way of holiness." Hence, in the Scriptures 
bad ways are called dark, rough, crooked, slippery. The 
way of transgressors is hard, rocky, thorny, full of trouble 
and sorrow; it begins in perplexity and misgiving, is at- 
tended with apprehension, doubt, and fear, and ends in dis- 
appointment and galling regret. But "the path of the 
upright is as a shining light;" "his foot standeth in an 
even place." The law of his God is in his heart ; none of 
his steps shall slide. An upright man hardly needs any 
counsel outside of his own honesty. He is self-adjusted. 
" The integrity of the upright shall preserve him, and the 
righteousness of the perfect shall direct his way." 

Second : He that walketh uprightly treads on firm ground ; 
he walks steadily, steps with confidence, because on this 
line there are no treacherous quagmires, no devouring quick- 
sands, no Serbonian bogs to swallow him up. He stands 
on safe, approved, well-tried principles, and, satisfied of the 
correctness of his chart and the rectitude of his plan, he 
abides by his resolutions, holds on to his main course with- 
out flinching or wavering. Like a ship, tight and strong, 
his integrity is well ballasted, and sits firmly poised upon its 



keel, so that the waves of temptation dashing upon him do 
not cause him to roll in uncertainty or topple over into 
unworthy practices. Lust, passion, humor, interest, are all 
variable, chopping all around the compass ; their miserable 
devotees are many-minded, unstable in all their ways ; " they 
reel to and fro like drunken men," and are at their wits' 
end. But the man guided by conscience and principle, for- 
tified by habit, remains even and composed in all the cir- 
cumstances of time and all the vicissitudes of fortune. 
Such a man in every case and condition is the same man, 
and goeth the same way. The contingencies of life do not 
unhinge him from his purposes nor divert his foot from the 
right course. Let the weather be fair or foul, let the world 
smile or frown, let him gain or lose, let him be commended 
or reproached, he will do what duty requires. The external 
state of things does not alter the moral reason of things 
with him. He verifies that sublime utterance of Job: "I 
hold fast my integrity ; my heart shall not reproach me so 
long as I live." 

In such a life there are no inequalities or contradictions, 
no clashing with himself, no collision with others. Pie 
never deludes or disappoints in his dealings, and escapes all 
the inconveniences and censures which issue from unfair- 
ness and deception. It is a great mistake, young gentle- 
men, to imagine that craft and dexterity are the best de- 
fense against the perils of life. No calculation of proba- 
bilities can insure the safety of a man w T ho is acting a 
deceitful part. Amid the unforeseen events of the future 
he has to fear not only the miscarriage of his plots, but 
the miseries which the disclosure of his fallacies may bring 
upon his head. Take an extensive survey of human af- 
fairs; inquire who are the men on the different lines of 
life that have gone through the world with most success. 
We shall find that men of probity and honor fill up the 



MORAL PRINCIPLES THE ONLY SAFEGUARD. 343 

most considerable part of the Kst. Nay, that men of plain 
understanding, acting with fair and direct views, have out- 
stripped in the long run those of the deepest policy who 
have been devoid of principle. How few persons lose their 
fortunes who have made them by steady industry, by fidel- 
ity, worth, and rigid adherence to duty! But how numer- 
ous and frequent the overthrow of those who make haste 
to be rich, who gamble in stocks, trade in " futures," make 
"corners" on the necessaries of life! The whole coast of 
illegitimate speculation is strewn with the wrecks of reputed 
millionaires; the bones of "bulls and bears" mingle in an 
ignoble, undistinguished pile. But he that hath clean hands 
and a pure heart shall wax stronger and stronger (perhaps 
financially, though that is a question of providence) in 
character, hope, and comfort. 

Third: He that walketh uprightly has adopted the surest 
way for the dispatch of business, and the shortest cut to the 
execution of any good purpose. As in geometry, of all 
lines and surfaces contained within given bounds, the 
straight line and the plain surface are the shortest, so in 
morality. The just view, the direct aim, the well-defined 
purpose — these are the easiest and quickest way to a chosen 
end. On this plain platform there are no bewildering in- 
trigues and mazes, no crooked windings and turnings, no 
dancing hither and thither, skipping backward and for- 
ward, doing and undoing ; these are all irksome and tedi- 
ous delays which waste time, hinder business, and defeat 
successful execution. The man who acts fairly and justly 
has an open, direct road before him, and has no occasion 
for retreat, excursion, or deflection on either hand. 

Human life to be successful is very much like building 
a house. To begin right you must have plan and specifica- 
tions, and these must be carried out in detail as the duty 
of every day requires. Changes waste lumber, embarrass 



344 BISHOP PIERCE'S SEBMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

workmen, delay progress, and mar the harmonious adjust- 
ment of parts. Loose and thriftless habits demoralize the 
whole man. I know men busy as bees, who work like 
beavers, but never accomplish any thing. They are fitful, 
irregular, desultory. r They are not prompt to begin, nor 
patient to hold on, nor determined to succeed. Energy is 
exhausted by spasms rather than work. They piddle with the 
trivial parts and leave the main chance to wait their pleas- 
ure. In the meantime the hard work grows heavier, and 
at last is never done at all. To be upright, perfect, we 
must economize time, gather up the fragments, systematize 
business, study method, make conscience of all promises 
and obligations, great and small. 

In these respects a man must learn to be considerate of 
others as well as himself. Punctuality deserves a place 
among the cardinal virtues. It is a wonderful economist of 
time — your own and that of others; the latter you cer- 
tainly have no right to waste. It is a conservator of tem- 
per, patience, equanimity. It inspires confidence, promotes 
fellowship, fosters self-respect, protects the nerves from 
worry, and soothes even a peevish nature into gentleness 
and amenity. 

Fourth: He that walketh uprightly is secure as to his 
honor and credit. Judged by his own apprehensions of 
himself or by the estimation of others, he does not blush 
at what he is doing nor reproach himself for what he has 
done. Consciousness and reputation alike defend his pro- 
ceeding from blemish or blame. The past, the present, and 
the future — memory, experience, and hope — all bless him. 
Meaning right in every thing, there is no check or strug- 
gling in his mind, no sting in his heart ; being satisfied with 
what he is about, his judgment approving, his will acqui- 
escing, he feels that his course is worthy of himself, agree- 
able to reason, and conformed to duty. The guidance of 



MORAL PRINCIPLES THE ONLY SAFEGUARD. 345 

uprightness is easily understood, and it is a great consola- 
tion that both character and happiness depend upon simple 
integrity much more than on extent of capacity. Plans of 
worldly policy are deep and intricate, and experience shows 
how often the ablest persons are mistaken in the measures 
they adopt for carrying them on. 

For the most part, the first impression w T hich strikes a 
good man as to what he ought or ought not to do is the 
right, the soundest one, and suggests the best and wisest 
counsel. If he hesitates and begins to think how 7 far his 
duty or his honor can be reconciled to what seems his in- 
terest, he is on the point of diverging into a dangerous path. 
It is in one issue only that the man who acts from worldly 
interest can enjoy satisfaction ; that is when his designs have 
succeeded according to his wish. It is the immense advan- 
tage of the upright that in any event there is something to 
comfort him. If success fails him, he has the consolation 
of having done his duty, and studied to approve himself 
unto God. 

We all know that other views are popular and are at 
work in the business world. But the schemes and hopes of 
the eager and hasty, however well devised and however fas- 
cinating in promise, and though successful for a spell, are 
yet freighted with mischief and trouble. To clamber over 
fences of duty, to break through the hedges of right, to 
trespass on hallowed inclosures, may seem the most com- 
pendious way of reaching an end, but these adventurers and 
speculators forget that he wno diggeth a pit to snare his 
neighbor shall fall into it himself, and he that breaketh a 
hedge a serpent shall bite him. The greed of gain — mak- 
ing haste to be rich, piling up colossal fortunes — is the sin 
and curse of our country. But to accumulate by fraud, 
corruption, extortion, oppression, overreaching, and sup- 
planting may be the shortest cut, the most expeditious way, 



346 bishop pierce's sermons and addresses. 

yet these gains are subject to several awful discounts. What 
a man thus makes is not his own. It is plunder, rapine, 
robbery, all glossed with milder names current in the world 
of trade ; yet the eye of Eternal Justice pierces through all 
the webs and veils, and God, in providence, pours the mal- 
ediction of his righteous judgment upon all these evil-doers 
and their ill-gotten spoil. It is written that " wealth gotten 
by vanity shall surely be diminished," and he that oppress? 
eth to increase his riches shall surely come to want. Again 
it is said : " He that increaseth riches and not by right shall 
leave them in the midst of his days, and at his end shall be 
a fool." Believe me, the plain way of simple, honest indus- 
try is the best way to thrive. "A little that a righteous 
man hath is better than the riches of many wicked." It 
lasts longer, has more enjoyment in it; there is no disgorg- 
ing to do at the end of the law or of a good conscience. 
It is a heritage that will go down to children and children's 
children. 

Fifth : He that walketh uprightly hath perfect security as 
to final results. This remark applies to this world and the 
world to come. The upright shall not be baffled in his ex- 
pectations and desires. If prosperity consists in satisfac- 
tion of mind concerning events, his success is sure. What! 
will he gain the victory in every battle? make money in 
every bargain ? reap bountifully wherever he sows? Prob- 
ably yes, perhaps no ; and yet, according to the true notion 
of prosperity, he shall prosper. To a man of broad views, 
of high, honorable impulses, of settled convictions of right, 
of holy aims, failure in inferiqr, subordinate matters is not 
defeat in the main thing. With such a man the principle 
design, the great end, is to please God and procure his favor, 
to satisfy his own mind and discharge his conscience, to 
promote his spiritual interests and save his soul, to do good 
by charity to mankind, serving the public in every legiti- 



MORAL PRINCIPLES THE ONLY SAFEGUARD. 347 

mate way, and furnishing to the world a virtuous example 
— all these he can most surely accomplish. What shall 
obstruct him in the prosecution, what debar him in the 
execution, of his noble resolve? In spite of all the world, 
by the succor grace affords, he will achieve his divinely 
ordained task. With regard to secular interests, he does 
not aim at success, except under conditions and with the 
reservation, " If the Lord will." Experience will teach 
him that it is good luck to have his projects blasted, and 
that missing is better than getting, if divine wisdom so de- 
termine. " The Lord taketh pleasure in the prosperity of 
his servants." That cannot be bad which he deems expe- 
dient and for the best. That cannot be considered as a 
disappointment nor counted as a misfortune which, on the 
plan of life and trust in Providence, we are prepared to 
accept with satisfaction and complacence. A wise man will 
always esteem that as best and most happy which secures 
interests incomparably more precious than worldly gain, 
producing fruits more w T holesome and savory than all earth- 
ly products, exercising and maturing the divinest virtues — 
virtues worth all the Avealth, all the preferment, all that is 
desirable in the world. 

Finally: The infinite advantage, the crowning glory, of 
uprightness is that at the last, when all deceits are laid 
bare, all 'the glamour of pretense seen through, all perverse 
intrigues unraveled, all base designs stripped of the cover- 
ings which now infold them; when the engineers of mis- 
chief, the experts in fraud shall be put to shame; when all 
things shall be accurately tried and impartially decided — 
then shall the righteousness of the upright come forth as 
the light, and his judgment as the noonday. Then what 
he has done shall be approved, what he has suffered shall 
be repaired. 

And now, young gentlemen, a final word direct to you. 



348 BISHOP PIERCE'S SERMOXS AND ADDRESSES. 

I am no pessimist, but it is not to be denied that there are 
facts, omens, and tendencies in American society alarming 
to the patriot and discouraging to the Christian philanthro- 
pist. Corruption seems to be epidemic. Xothing escapes 
its unhallowed touch. It sweeps like a flood through the 
high places of the Government, and seeps and trickles 
through all the crevices of domestic and commercial life. 
The malaria of loose and vicious sentiment and of a licen- 
tious literature spreads and perpetuates the infection. To 
say nothing now of the violence and outrage in the form 
of incendiarism, rape, and murder, the rage for money is 
undermining all the foundations of morality, of personal 
honor, and public integrity. It is potent in the bribery of 
elections. The ballot-box, once the safeguard of public lib- 
erty, is no longer a security for our institutions. Candi- 
dates, the press, leading men, talk openly of the use of 
money in a Presidential campaign, as if this demoralizing 
prostitution of it were a regular part of the machinery of 
the Government. Sound policy, principles, measures, no 
longer determine the issue. Yenal votes, bought and sold 
like sheep in the market, hold in their hands the destinies 
of the country. The intelligence and virtue of the land, 
revolted by the arts of the demagogue, disgusted with the 
tricks of the politicians, and shrinking from the contact of 
the vicious and the vile, have largely withdrawn from pub- 
lic affairs, and left the country to drift as it may under the 
propulsion of the malign forces at work in the midst of it. 
We must look largely to the young men of Christian edu- 
cation to reform this state of things. 

We see the corruption of which I speak in the spirit of 
reckless speculation which prevails in every department of 
business. Speculation pure and simple — I use the word in 
its worst popular sense — in my judgment contravenes the 
laws of nature and providence, brings about an abnormal 



MORAL PRINCIPLES THE ONLY SAFEGUARD. 349 

state of things, complicates in its results the vexed question 
of the relations of capital and labor, disturbs and unsettles 
the finances of the nation, and precipitates a panic upon 
the people, either by its legerdemain or its inevitable out- 
come. Perhaps no country in the world ever furnished 
such a theater for its action as our own. The vastness of 
our territory, the growth of our cities, the location of new 
towns, the building of railroads, the issue of stocks and 
bonds and mortgages, have all furnished the opportunity 
and the temptation. The mania for quick, sudden fortune 
has swept thousands into the snare, and in the whirl and 
frenzy of excitement they have projected their schemes into 
every line of trade and every species of enterprise, from a 
corner on the bread of the hungry down to the planting of 
an orange-tree. Ay, these bold, desperate adventurers, not 
content with the abounding material the numerous chances 
of the present afford, have stretched into the future and 
trade upon things that are not as though they were. This 
wild hunt for fortune, apart from all plans of productive 
industry, is the bane of our social life and a formidable bar 
to general prosperity. The evils are direct and indirect. 
On the parties themselves the stimulus, the infatuation of 
extravagant desires and boundless hopes, obscure all ideas 
of right, of honor, of relative obligation, and resolve life 
and character into odious, supreme selfishness. On the 
other hand, the toiling millions grow weary, restless, dis- 
contented with their slow accumulations, and in the fer- 
ment of thought and passion are brewed the turbulent ele- 
ments which threaten social order and the stability of our 
institutions. Honest, productive labor of hand or brain is 
the law of permanent wealth, of personal virtue, of useful- 
ness and safety. 

Other evils demand mention because of their pestifer- 
ous influence on life, property, character, marriage, and 



350 BISHOP PIERCE'S SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

domestic purity. Their long, silent toleration is one of the 
marvels of our history ; but they are doomed to discussion, 
legislation, and, I trust, utter abolition. I mean the liquor 
traffic — manufacture, sale, license. These fountains of evil 
must be stanched. These sources of taxation and tempta- 
tion, and plunder and corruption, and sin and shame must 
be relegated to the past, and human life made safer and 
purer by their absence. The adulteration of food now so 
common must be ranked by statute among the felonies of 
the criminal calendar, and the guilty culprits who poison 
the blood of the people with their filthy drugs and chem- 
ical cheats consigned to the halter or the penitentiary. 
This wicked tampering by mercenary manufacturers, for 
the sake of gain, with the life and health of the people is 
one of the gigantic crimes of the century, and one of the 
saddest developments of American genius for invention and 
enterprise. 

Let me catalogue one other, the farthest-reaching, the 
most soul-destroying, God-defying of all. I refer to the lax 
laws of divorce as found in all the States. Human legisla- 
tures, in all their rules and regulations on this subject, out- 
side of the divine word, have transcended their authority, 
and the country is reaping the woful harvest of their im- 
pious presumption. Marriage is a divine institution. It 
was first in the order of time. God ordained it as the 
fountain-head of the family, the government, and the race, 
and his law defines and regulates it. By divine statute wed- 
lock is permanent and indissoluble save by the infidelity of 
the parties or the act of God. Any loosening of the bond 
on any other account impairs the sacredness of the contract 
and jeopards all that is vital in the institution. God made 
them male and female, and declared that they twain should 
be one flesh; but the latitude of our laws and the loose 
administration of them suggest and encourage separation 



MORAL PRINCIPLES THE ONLY SAFEGUARD. 351 

for light and trivial causes. The result is : marriage for a 
limited time, divorce on expiration of contract; in other 
cases discord, divisions, then appeal to the courts, then re- 
marriage of one or both ; the consummation — lust, bigamy, 
and legalized crime. 

This is a shocking representation, I know; but the facts 
justify me, and I make the statement here and now to array 
the intelligence and religion of the country on the right 
side of all these questions. Especially do I desire to enlist 
these educated young men — the pride of our families, the 
friends and the hope of the Church, and the future guardi- 
ans of the State — as the champions of right and virtue, of 
reform in politics and business, of the true scriptural, invi- 
olable relations of men and women in wedded life. 

The real protection of society is in individual character. 
If you are personally pure and upright, however quiet and 
retired your life, you will be an accretion to the moral force 
by which the needed revolution is to be wrought. But 
you ought not to be merely latent, negative, passive. You 
must be active co-workers in every good word and work. 
You must not put your candle under a bushel, nor bury 
your talent in the earth. From this time onward the re- 
sponsibilities of manhood are upon you. Assert yourselves ; 
fill your place; take position. Ally yourselves with all 
that is honorable, noble, useful, and of good report. Let 
the people know where to find you, what to expect of you, 
and feel that they can trust you. These thoughts apply at 
every stage and turn of life, but they will grow in signifi- 
cance as you grow older and opportunities multiply and 
obligations increase. Get ready for whatever may betide 
you. The State needs incorruptible men to fill her offices, 
wise men to mold her legislation, upright men to adminis- 
ter her laws, men of " understanding who know what Israel 
ought to do." The Church, education, the college, the 



352 bishop pierce's sermons and addresses. 

Sunday-school, all need men — active, earnest, full of vim 
and enthusiasm — consecrated men, for the work of the 
present and the future. We who are passing off the stage 
turn our eyes with longing, prayerful interest to the youth 
of the land. "We must decrease, you may increase. 

And now I commend you to God and the word of his 
grace. May you live to fulfill all parental hopes, honor 
your alma mater, work for your country with credit and 
usefulness, stand as witnesses for Jesus and the truth, serve 
your generation by the will of God, and realize all the re- 
wards of uprightness in time and eternity. 



Character and Work of a gospel Minister. 



"Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doc- 
trine. Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by 
prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery. Med- 
itate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them; that thy prof- 
iting may appear to all. Take heed unto thyself and unto the doc- 
trine; continue in them; for in doing this thou shalt both save thy- 
self, and them that hear thee." (1 Tim. iv. 13-16.) 

TO a man familiar with the phases of modern thought, 
the tendencies of society, and the moral developments 
of the age, it is positively startling to read the descrip- 
tions of them contained in the Bible. How fresh and mi- 
nute they are! how apposite! how exact! Many passages 
seem like a morning chronicle of yesterday's history and 
experience. This fact ought to take prominent rank among 
the internal evidences which authenticate the book as divine. 
These accounts of what will be — express statements uttered 
and recorded long centuries ago of that subtle thing we call 
thought; the mystery of iniquity working under a mask — 
are too definite and life-like to have been the mere elabora- 
tions of a sagacious human mind. It is God speaking be- 
forehand for the warning and instruction of the Church, 
and especially for the furniture and equipment of the min- 
istry. 

The object seems to be threefold. First, to conserve the 

*A discourse delivered before the ordination of deacons at the 
Holston Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in 
Abingdon, Va., Sunday morning, Oct. 26, 1879. — Editor. 

23 (353) 



354 BISHOP PIERCE'S SERMON'S AXD ADDRESSES. 

faith of the ministry, by timely notice, from the shock of 
these alarming disclosures; second, that they should keep 
the Church in remembrance of these things, and thus guard 
her from corruption and apostasy ; third, to impress both 
parties with this great truth : that heresy with regard to 
any of the fundamental articles of the Christian faith tends 
inevitably to degeneracy — social, political, and moral. The 
truth of this proposition is to be found in the account of 
those perilous times which the apostle predicts in the future 
history of the Church. The access to the human mind of 
seducing spirits, the doctrine of devils, diabolical sentiments, 
the tolerance of falsehood and the defense of hypocrisy, the 
abolition of social ties, decrying the marriage-covenant as a 
despotism and a nuisance, substituting abstinence from meats 
for self-denial and godly sorrow, are all sequences of what 
the apostle calls "departing from the faith" — a serious 
error either in reference to the things which are to be be- 
lieved or the things which are to be done. Heretical in- 
terpretations of doctrines or morals are fraught with un- 
told, unutterable mischief. It is a leak that will sink the 
ship. It is a drop of virus that will gangrene the body. 
Let go your hold upon the faith once delivered to the saints, 
and you are unmoored and adrift. The winds and the cur- 
rents will bear you surely and swiftly to destruction. 

Keeping these points in mind (they will be useful in the 
sequel), let us come up to the subject from another stand- 
point. 

Paul and Barnabas, in their first missionary journey 
among the Gentiles, came to Lystra, where, though resisted 
and persecuted, they preached the gospel with considerable 
success. Among the converts were Lois, the mother, and 
Eunice, the daughter, who had married a Gentile. The hus- 
band, it is likely, was now dead ; but Timothy, the only child, 
was living, and became, while yet very young, the subject 



A GOSPEL MINISTER. 355 

of gracious influences. Whether his conversion was the 
outgrowth of maternal instruction and example or the fruit 
of apostolic preaching, it is perhaps impossible to determine. 
If Paul sowed the seed, Lois and Eunice prepared the soil. 
If Paul gathered the fruit, his mother planted the tree. 
'The faith of his maternal ancestors was inculcated if not 
transmitted: "The unfeigned faith which dwelt first in thy 
grandmother, Lois, and then in thy mother, Eunice, and I 
am persuaded in thee also." If this be not the law of he- 
redity working by statute and promise to a given result (and 
this I neither affirm nor believe), yet is it the benediction of 
God descending through three generations as the seal of his 
approval upon household piety. In natural order, as well 
as gracious covenant and design, instruction precedes con- 
version. From a child Timothy knew the Holy Scriptures, 
and by them was made wise unto salvation through faith 
which is in Christ Jesus. To be trained from infancy in 
the fear of God is a great blessing, and a truly religious ed- 
ucation is of infinite worth; but parents, ministers, and 
teachers of every grade must understand that to save the 
soul conversion must follow. The truth, "Ye must be born 
again," is irrespective of age. General knowledge, ortho- 
doxy, discipline, may be auxiliaries; they never can be 
proxies. Graduating into religion by merely educational 
processes, in view of the general ignorance and imperfect 
capacities of- mankind, is a dubious experiment in any case, 
and never can be of general application. Some very inn 
prudent and misleading declarations are made now and 
then in these days upon this subject by some earnest Sun- 
day-school workers and some semi-Pelagian preachers. The 
necessity of the new birth cannot be anticipated and super- 
seded by any form of moral training or any measure of in- 
tellectual development. The pulpit of this day, if faithful 
to Christ and human salvation, must bear strong testimony 



356 BISHOP PIERCE'S SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

against the popular tendency to substitute spiritual religion 
— to displace realities by similitudes. I tell you, to repeat 
the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments and the 
Apostles' Creed, to get the catechism by heart and sing 
beautiful songs, and to receive baptism and confirmation 
and communion in regular succession as to time and order, 
is, after all, a very mild type of religion. I prefer and in- 
sist upon that form where head and heart, principles and 
affections, conscience and will, life and character, are all 
melted, mingled, and molded by divine power, and stand 
forth at last in the bright, beautiful image and superscrip- 
tion of Him who came to forgive and save. 

When Paul made his second visit to Lystra he found 
Timothy a member of the Church, and in high repute 
among the people as a sober, devout young man. On the 
ground of former acquaintance, his family relationships, his 
spiritual-mindedness, his kindred sympathies in gospel-work, 
his natural talents and adaptations, there soon grew up be- 
tween them a loving intimacy. Through mutual affection 
they stood in the relation of father and son, and under God 
the younger was largely developed by the elder. 

I have often observed that the common judgment of the 
Church that a young man ought to preach is pretty strong 
presumptive evidence, outside of any impression upon his 
own consciousness, of a call to the ministry. By itself it 
would not answer, I concede, as a law of action. Never- 
theless, great respect is due to it as corroborating evidence. 
The common opinion that there was a prediction concerning 
the future destiny and usefulness of Timothy may find its 
solution in the popular judgment of the Church that he 
was a person eminently fit for a high and holy calling. No 
prophecy, in the sense of a divine revelation, is anywhere 
recorded of him ; and the prevailing views of the brethren, 
harmonizing with his own convictions of dutv, may consti- 



A GOSPEL MINISTER. 357 

tute the designation — the "settiDg apart" — which the apos- 
tle calls a prophecy, and which justified his ordination. 

To come a little nearer to ourselves, it is a solemn view 
of the responsibilities of the Christian ministry that, what- 
ever a man's native gifts or incidental endowments, howev- 
er truly called of God and hopefully indorsed by the Church, 
his future is contingent, both as to his personal safety and 
his relative usefulness. The gospel is a charge, a sacred de- 
posit, committed to the ministry. We are ministers of Christ 
and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover, it is re- 
quired of a steward that a man be found faithful, trustwor- 
thy. These terms are significant, suggestive. In his gen- 
eral directions the apostle stresses three points : 

First. What and how we are to teach. We must teach 
sound doctrine — must sow the wheat of God's truth, not the 
chaff of human inventions, not the. myths of a vain imag- 
ination, but the unqualified verities of the holy word. We 
are to speak with authority, because we speak by authority. 
We must testify " repentance toward God and faith toward 
our Lord Jesus Christ." The spirit of the teacher must be 
tender but the mode of instruction dogmatic. " These things 
command and teach." 

The second point is personal purity. " Be thou an exam- 
ple of the believers in word, in conversation, in charity, in 
spirit, in faith, in purity." 

The third point is, he must be to the brethren a faithful 
monitor. " If thou put the brethren in remembrance of 
these things, thou shalt be a good minister of the Lord Je- 
sus, nourished up in the words of faith and good doc- 
trine." 

To these high standards Timothy had already attained, 
and now that there might be no collapse, no loss of influ- 
ence, no forfeiture of public interest, but rather accumu- 
lated knowledge, richer furniture of mind, a broader prep- 



358 BISHOP piebce's sebmoxs and aldbesses. 

aration for usefulness, "till I come, give attendance to read- 
ing, to exhortation, to doctrine." 

The apostle doubtless refers mainly, if not exclusively, to 
the Old Testament Scriptures. At that period books were 
not numerous, and very few, if any, would have been of 
much value to a gospel preacher. One leading function of 
the early ministry was to convince or confound the Jews. 
To be thoroughly furnished for this work, they must equip 
themselves from that divine armory. They must know the 
promises, the prophecies, the events of the divine adminis- 
tration, their order and relation, and the fulfillment and 
harmony of them in the person and history of Christ. 
Preaching, at first, was emphatically a simple proclamation 
of the great facts of Christianity. These were the staple 
of every discourse. To testify of Jesus was the sole occu- 
pation of the preacher. From the days of Ezra all along, 
it was customary to read the law and the prophets in every 
synagogue, and now doubtless in every Christian assembly ; 
and as Ezra read the law and gave the sense thereof, in 
after times regular officers were appointed to read the Script- 
ures and append suitable paraphrases and comments. Such 
was the origin of what we call preaching. The injunction 
of the text may be regarded not simply as the recognition 
of a prevailing custom, but an apostolic indorsement of the 
free reading of the Holy Book as an important part of pub- 
lic worship in every congregation. 

"Give attendance to reading." Timothy was to read 
alone. His public addresses were to be the fruit of his pri- 
vate study. He was to imbue his mind with the light and 
spirit' of the Bible. In it he was to find his intellectual ani- 
mation and spiritual vigor. From it he was to derive the 
materials of his argument and the inspiration of his oratory. 
In this element of wonders are the treasures of wisdom and 
knowledge. Here are the safeguards of social order, the 



A GOSPEL MINISTER. 359 

vital forces of a true civilization, the only elements of per- 
petuity in government. Read the Bible, Timothy; read it 
in your closet; read it in your churches; fill your head with 
its truth; let its revelations set your heart on fire; enrich, 
adorn the Church with its gems and jewels; thrill your con- 
gregations with its disclosures of the eternal future. O 
brethren, you need not rack your poor invention for topics, 
arguments, novelties! The freshest, newest, most rousing, 
thrilling thing in the world is the gospel of Jesus Christ. 
Above all other men, it is the glory of the Christian preach- 
er that his materials are furnished by the opulence of infi- 
nite wisdom- A way of salvation for our fallen race ; the 
recovery of the favor and image of our Maker; the divin- 
ity, incarnation, death, and resurrection of the Son of God; 
the empire of the Church; the prospect of glory — these are 
our themes. Into them the prophets searched diligently as 
long as they lived, and when they went to heaven found the 
angels bending with unsated curiosity over the same im- 
mortal wonders. In these contemplations the apostles lived, 
labored, and rejoiced. Out of them came their sermons, 
epistles, and triumphs. Compared with these, the specula- 
tions and reasonings of men are but as the toys of child- 
hood. Our subjects never wear out or grow stale. Ex- 
haustless in depth and variety, earth is too narrow to con- 
tain and time too short to display them. " Draw all your 
cares and studies this way." Beware of human glosses — 
the tincture of a deceitful philosophy with its distinctions 
and refinements. Stick to your text. Neither add nor 
subtract. It is the word of God, and partakes of his own 
power and immortality. 

But we may give the text a broader range. At present 
the world abounds with books. " Of making many books 
there is no end." What to read is now a difficult question, 
and ought to be a question of conscience with every man, 



360 BISHOP PIERCE'S SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

especially a preacher. Many books in high repute are well 
calculated to undermine faith and principle ; others to de- 
file the imagination, debauch the taste; and yet others to 
demoralize both life and character. Solomon said, " Cease, 
my son, to hear the instruction that causeth to err from the 
words of knowledge." The tendency is to a very large lib- 
erty in the wrong direction. If, however, we give ourselves 
wholly to the functions and objects of our ministry, a sound 
discrimination will save us from any grievous departure. I 
sometimes fear that newspapers have largely displaced books, 
and that much of our reading is recreative and desultory — 
a mere knitting up of the odds and ends of current history. 
If this be occasional, it may be allowed. If this be all, it 
is dissipation — it is the napkin in which we wrap the talents 
we bury. Our reading, brethren, should be chiefly grave, 
solid, religious — furnishing pabulum for thought — brain- 
food, with variety enough to give bone and muscle and sinew 
and flesh and skin and bloom to the whole mental man, 
so that our sermons shall not be dry, ghastly skeletons, 
without even decent grave-clothes, but living forms instinct 
with energy, throbbing with emotion, breathing inspiration, 
and troubling the hearts of the people like the angel which 
came down upon the pool of Bethesda. Read, read, gather 
in, lay up — not for private capital, but for public use and 
benefit; circulate your treasures, edify the believers, con- 
firm the disciples, preach many things in your exhortation, 
let doctrinal truth be the substratum of all your deliver- 
ances. Call me fogy if you will, yet I am free to say if we 
had more doctrine and less speculation, more facts from ex- 
perience and less of argument for defense, fewer expound- 
ers and more exhorters, it would be better for the Church 
and religion. Many of us, brethren, will never write com- 
mentaries or preach big sermons, but Ave can tell our expe- 
rience, when we were awakened; what wc thought, felt, 



A GOSPEL MINIS TEE. 361 

and feared ; our doubts, struggles, and temptations ; and by 
the time we reach the point where God converted us, if our 
own tears will let us see, we shall find the audience weep- 
ing too. 

"Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given 
thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the 
presbytery." The term gift is indefinite, and is differently 
construed by those who have disputed concerning the chan- 
nel through which ministerial grace is conveyed. The pre- 
latical idea of virtue, transmitted by successional contact 
through a long line of episcopal ordinations, certainly finds 
no support in this text. If we allow a modicum of truth 
in the assumption, the gift came through the hands of 
the presbytery, and not from popes or bishops. But the 
fact is, the Church was more indebted to the gift than the 
gift to the Church. Whether we interpret the word to 
mean natural talent, or gracious endowment, or ministerial 
office, or disciplinary authority, two things are plain — first, 
that the action of the presbytery was a formal recognition 
and indorsement of Timothy's divine call ; and second, that 
the purpose and plan of God were largely dependent upon 
his fidelity to the obligations imposed. The office of the 
ministry is the gift of Christ, and the gift is made not to 
magnify us, but for the benefit of others. What a motive 
to zeal, self-denial, and consecration ! Even the extraordi- 
nary gifts conferred by the laying on of the apostle's hands 
were to be stirred up as fire under the embers, and fresh 
fuel laid on. The great law of increase holds here in all 
its force. Use gifts and have gifts. "To him that hath 
shall be given." A man's ministry ought to be cumulative 
in power and usefulness. The light that is in him should 
shine more and more till the sun of life melts away in the 
light of heaven. 

" Meditate upon these things." It is not what we eat that 



362 bishop pierce's sermons and addresses. 

makes us strong, but what we digest. It is not what we 
gain that makes us rich, but what we save. It is not what 
we read that makes us wise, but what we remember, under- 
stand, and are able- to appropriate. As the miner smelts 
the ore to separate the metal from extraneous substances, 
so do you fuse the thoughts of other men in your own fur- 
nace, and mold them in the mint of your own invention. 
Classify, systematize, keep all you know at command, ready 
for use. Avoid reveries, idle, aimless musings. Do not 
turn your thoughts loose to gambol like lambs in a pasture, 
but put them in harness and train them for service. Culti- 
vate the power of attention. Let your will dominate all 
your mental forces, so that by your pleasure they shall fall 
into line like well-drilled soldiers at the w 7 ord of command. 
"Meditate on these things." Revolve them frequently in 
your mind. Review the nature, reasons, and motives of 
your ministry. Never permit your labors to become me- 
chanical and perfunctory. Rear in mind whose you are 
and whom you serve. Remember your conversion, your 
call to preach, your solemn covenant with Christ and the 
Church. Let the vow*s you utter this day survive the oc- 
casion, living echoes peating over the solitude of your soul 
like the chimes of eternity. Make full proof of your min- 
istry; let it be exhaustive of your utmost capacity for use- 
fulness. Amid all the discouragements of your work, nerve 
and nourish your soul with thoughts of eternity and heav- 
en. In the light of the world to come, the palace dwarfs 
into a hovel compared with the Church you serve, and the 
pulpit in which you stand is grander than the throne of 
empires. To us as preachers belongs the preeminence of 
being fellow-laborers with God Almighty in the work he 
most delights to do. 

" Give thyself wholly to them." The w T ork of the min- 
istry is enough for any one man to do. Here are subjects 



A GOSPEL MINISTER. 363 

to tax the mightiest intellect. Here are interests to fill the 
largest heart. Here are duties to appropriate every mo- 
ment of time. Our Discipline says: " Be diligent, never be 
unemployed, never be triflingly employed." Keep your 
heart and conscience in the work. Seek your enjoyment 
in your duties. Do not pule and whine about your hard- 
ships and sacrifices. I confess to no little disgust with those 
men who are forever claiming the honors of martyrdom 
while eating the fat of the land — provided at the ex- 
pense of others — receiving on every side the respect and 
homage of* the people, and all forsooth because they are 
required to travel and preach the gospel. Ah ! beloved, if 
we were stripped of the honors and emoluments of the min- 
istry, the most of us would be poor indeed. There are in- 
conveniences and discomforts, and so in every lot. I have 
seen lawyers without brief or client, doctors without fees or 
patients, merchants without trade or cash, farmers with 
blighted crops and blasted hopes. We have this advan- 
tage above all other men : that while our work is heavy 
and hard to do, like Jonathan's rod, there is honey at the 
end of it. " Go thou thy way till the end be, for thou shalt 
rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days." 

" That thy profiting may appear to all." While I would 
enforce this clause with all the vigor of my convictions and 
my conscience, yet I think it right to interject a caution. In 
these days, when the rage for education is so active and uni- 
versal, I think our young preachers are in danger of adopting 
false views and wrong methods on the pretext of better prepa- 
ration for their work. Whatever may be expedient beforehand 
and as a preliminary, when a man has attained his major- 
ity, and joined Conference, and traveled usefully three or 
four years or more, he ought not to stop to go to college. 
Better struggle on where he is. Study and practice, books 
and preaching, and pastoral fidelity, will achieve grander 



364 BISHOP PIERCE'S SEBMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

results, both mental and ministerial, than the training of 
the schools. 

After all, brethren, our great preachers — popularly so 
called — are not our most useful men. " Gaining knowl- 
edge is a good thing — saving souls is better." Eeputation 
is often a hinderance rather than a help to the great ends of 
the ministry. Bishop Soule, addressing the Georgia Con- 
ference once, said: "Thank God, I never was a popular 
preacher ! " Bascom told me that fame ruined him — that 
his life was a failure. In a solemn, trying hour, Munsey 
uttered the same sentiment in a conversation with me. It 
is safer to abide in your calling, and do the best you can 
under your circumstances. If* God will, the ram's horn 
is more effective than the silver trumpet. Yet, with single 
eye to the work and its end, study to show yourselves ap- 
proved unto God, and let your profiting- appear in all things, 
as the margin has it. Let it be apparent to yourself as well 
as to others, and especially to others as well as yourself. Let 
it be so conspicuous that all the people shall see it, and 
bless God for it. A preacher who cannot teach and will 
not learn ought to be cashiered. A preacher who conceits 
that he is a genius, smart enough, and does not read, will 
not study, will soon gravitate to a level far below his esti- 
mate of himself. Then comes mortification and trouble. A 
preacher who culminates in his improvement by the time he 
is an elder, and then, year after year, deals out his old moldy, 
musty bread to the hungry people, is too lazy to be good 
and too worthless to be employed. Bead, think, study, pray, 
work, improve. Bring out of your treasury things new 
and old. Carry your sermons in your heart rather than 
your memory. Fruit mellowed on its native stem, in the 
genial sunshine, is far more luscious than when premature- 
ly pulled and made to ripen in the shade. Yonder artifi- 
cial reservoir holds water, but the earth around is dry and 



A GOSPEL MIXISTEB. 365 



dusty; no verdure springs; the element within stagnates, 
grows putrid, unfit for use. The bubbling spring wells up 
its crystal drops in unceasing flow, and as the living stream 
murmurs along, beauty and bloom mark its passage. Keep 
your mind at work, your invention active. Strive to be 
always fresh, if not new. With such a text-book as we 
have, there ought to be neither sterility nor sameness. 
" Take heed uuto thyself, and unto the doctrine." 

Take heed to thy spirit and character, thy experience 
and practice. Personal purity is indispensable to power, 
both with God and men. Learn to be thoughtful, lest im- 
pulse betray you to imprudence and miscarriage. In innu- 
merable ways a minister may neutralize himself, degrade 
his holy office, and utterly forestall the great ends of his 
calling. Let every man " watch unto prayer." " Ye are 
my witnesses," said Jesus; "walk worthy of the vocation 
wherewith ye are called." Beware of pride and envy, jeal- 
ousy and ambition. Hold yourself — your personal con- 
venience and your worldly interest — in rigid subordination 
to the claims of Christ upon you. Preach a pure and spir- 
itual religion, and illustrate it in your life and conversa- 
tion, " giving no offense in any thing, that the ministry be 
not blamed." 

" Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine." This 
association of thoughts is not incidental, nor the mere out- 
come of previous teaching, but was suggested by the vital 
relation between right living and right faith. Personal 
purity in thought, word, and deed largely determines the 
soundness of a man's doctrinal views. Character and faith 
act and react upon each other. Timothy, as a minister, 
must mind what he taught the people. There must be nei- 
ther overstatement nor hiding of the truth. The salvation 
of the people was no less dependent upon sound doctrine than 
his own upon fidelity in the delivery of it. By doctrine we 



366 BISHOP PIERCE'S SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

are not to understand a single truth, but the whole system 
of truth as revealed, and the preacher must give to each 
the importance, the stress which belongs to it, in the order 
of divine teaching. Depravity, redemption, justification 
by faith, the witness of the Spirit, the new birth, holiness 
of heart and life, eternal life and eternal death — these, 
with all that they imply and involve as collateral — convic- 
tion for sin, repentance, faith, absolute submission, universal 
consecration to Christ — these must all be taught. They 
stand or fall together. They are all vitally related. There 
is an interdependence among them, and all together they 
make np the " word of faith " which we are to preach, 
" that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus." 

" Continue in them.-' Preach nothing else. All other 
themes belong to the lecture-room, the platform. The pul- 
pit is sacred to Christ and his religion. Begin your minis- 
try with the truth as it is in Jesus. Let this be the staple 
and the burden of every discourse. Continue to proclaim 
him as the Lamb for sinners slain ; know nothing but Christ 
and him crucified. " Preach him to all, and cry, in death, 
Behold the Lamb ! " For in doing this, " thou shalt both save 
thyself and them that hear thee." O glorious consumma- 
tion ! happy end of toil and self-denial ! vast recompense of 
reward for faithfulness to Christ and his people! What 
more can we ask? This is abounding grace. O Jesus, 
bring us to heaven with our families, our churches, and our 
people ! 



Revival Needed; 



NUMBER ONE. 
OW, brethren, as we have entered upon a new year, 
let us have, in the name of the Lord Jesus, a revival 
year — an epochal revival, wide deep, abiding. This 
is the supreme need of the times. Such revivals have oc- 
curred in the history of the Church. Our own country has 
been favored with them again and again. They rescued us 
from the flood of French infidelity in the beginning of this 
century. They determined the type of civilization as the 
tide of population rolled westward. The society, the tone, 
the sentiment, the institutions of every State have been 
molded by their power or marred by their absence. We 
are now in a crisis, socially and politically, where nothing 
but the power of God embodied and manifested in a general 
revival of religion can control and eliminate the elements 
of evil. The moral atmosphere is full of malaria. We 
need a Pentecostal revival — mighty, rushing — to purify it. 
Mere human agencies may modify, abate the trouble, and 
thus postpone the disastrous issue, but they cannot reform 
and redeem the nation. The catastrophe will come. Nei- 
ther education nor legislation nor administration can do the 
needed work. They can help, cooperate, but they cannot 
rule the sea and stay its tidal-waves. We must have the 

* These articles appeared in the Wesleyan Christian Advocate in the 
spring of 1883. They were also published in pamphlet form by the 
editor, the Eev. W. H. Potter, D.D. They express Bishop Pierce's 
views, feelings, and personal attitude on the important subject they 
discuss. — Editor. 

(3G7) 



368 BISHOP PIERCE'S SEEMOXS AXD ADDRESSES . 

power from on high. Local religious excitements will not 
meet the exigency. They are not to be ignored or under- 
rated. They have done good and will do good. Like show- 
ers here and there in a general dry season, they save the 
land from a universal drought. Still, as a rule, the crops 
are a failure; there is scarcity and distress. So in the 
Church, a few conversions now and then, m this place and 
that, prevent utter stagnation, yet leave the great mass of 
the Church inert and unfruitful. Our cities, towns, coun- 
ties, stations, and circuits all need a moral upheaval, a 
work of thorough regeneration. The Church itself needs 
purification, not so much by the expulsion of the disorderly 
(though this may be necessary) as by a higher standard of 
ethics in business, in personal habits, in social life, and a 
daily, conscious experience of the grace of God in the 
heart. 

Dearly beloved, I am not croaking. I am not taking 
gloomy views of things. I am not a panic-maker. But I 
address myself to a felt want, to patent facts, to what every 
thinking man who loves his race knows as well as I. Any, 
every system of theology or morals which leaves the heart 
unchanged is a failure, a fraud, a snare. I believe in the 
Christian religion as the wisdom and power of God, the 
great salvation provided for all people. I believe in prayer 
and effort, faith and works. I believe a great revival of 
pure and undefiled religion is according to the will of God 
as revealed in the Scriptures, and that God will respond in 
power to the cry of faith and the agony of prayer. 

K~ow, then, I beseech the preachers to set their hearts 
upon this general baptism of the Spirit. Arrange all your 
plans to this end. Adapt your sermons to this result. En- 
list the laity in the activities of the Church. Give the 
women something to do for Christ and human salvation. 
Interest the children, and make the Sundav-schools auxili- 



REVIVAL NEEDED. 3G9 



ary to the work. Do not be content with good meetings 
and partial, scanty results. Aim at great things, ask for 
great things, expect great things. " Open thy mouth wide," 
says the Lord, " and I will fill it." Jesus is able and will- 
ing, mighty to save. When Christ went down to heal the 
ruler's daughter he wrought a famous miracle on the way, 
but he rested not till he reached his destination. You, my 
brethren, are doing good in many ways, but this is incident- 
al, a work by the way. Your first, chief business is the 
conversion of sinners. Let not the erection of churches di- 
vide your mind or delay your steps. The parsonage ought 
to be built, the collections all taken, every duty done, but 
do not stop short of a revival among your people. Good 
salary, comfortable surroundings, pleasant society — these 
are all desirable, yet they cannot compensate you for a bar- 
ren ministry. Let nothing satisfy you but success. " Make 
full proof of your ministry." " Do the work of an evan- 
gelist." Travail in soul for those for whom Christ died. 
Hunt the lost sheep. Persuade the prodigal to return to 
his father's house. Pluck the brand from the burning. Be 
instant in season, out of season. By all means save some. 

Let us all pray and work for another Pentecost. O that 
we too may count our converts by the thousand ! Why not 
double our membership this year? Is this extravagant, 
presumptuous, absurd? Why so? You never saw the like? 
never read of it? never heard of it? Well, well, is that 
the measure of your faith? Are your hopes bounded by 
what you have seen, read, and heard? Is there nothing 
better? Are we to live forever at this poor, dying rate? 
God forbid! Is the Lord's ear heavy that he cannot hear? 
Is his hand shortened that he cannot save? His promise is 
given, let us prove him. His power is sufficient, let us test 
it. O that Zion may travail! Let every member go into 
his chamber and pray three times a day, "Thy kingdom 
24 



370 BISHOP PIERCE 'S SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

come." Let every preacher ascend Mount Garmel, and 
pray till the little cloud rises from the sea, and then in the 
spirit of prophecy announce to the Church that he hears 
the sound of abundance of rain. 



NUMBER WO. 
Let us stick to the text. I do not mean to disparage any 
plan or appliance for good. I bid them all Godspeed. But 
all human schemes and agencies, however wise and active, 
are slow in their effects. Time is a great element in their 
operation. There must be patience, repetition, long, hope- 
ful waiting. These moral revolutions accumulate power 
gradually. One individual is brought over now, and then 
another, and for a spell — often a long one — the accession 
of force is scarcely appreciable. In most cases public sen- 
timent is of tardy growth ; and yet without its backing law 
is feeble, admininistration hampered; wisdom utters her 
voice — even cries aloud in the streets — but rallies no audi- 
ence; truth itinerates, seeking help and finding none; men 
are afraid of each other; and society waits to see the drift. 
Education might help to more intelligent voting, but this 
will be a small gain as long as bribery can speculate on hu- 
man corruption. Illiteracy is a sad thing, greatly to be de- 
plored, and depravity in high places may cajole and betray 
its unfortunate subjects, to the great damage of the coun- 
try ; but if there were a school in every house, and every 
man, woman, and child could read and write, yet without 
the restraints of faith and conscience, the fear of God and 
the dread of eternal retribution, I doubt if our social and 
political condition would be at all improved. Masses of 
people, to do right, must have religion — ay, not to mince 
the truth, I mean the religion of the gospel of Jesus. No 
other system has power to conquer, convert, renew. 



REVIVAL NEEDED.' 371 

Now, the point is this: The world is dying, we are all 
passing away, we cannot afford to wait on the slow processes 
of amelioration. Culture, enlightenment, civilization, so- 
cial amenities may make the world better-looking — may ve- 
neer depravity, hide many ugly spots — but refinement is not 
regeneration. We must be born again — remolded by the 
Power that created us, and which alone can raise us from 
the death of sin or the bondage of the grave. What we 
want is a general revival — a great religious excitement — 
which shall suddenly and powerfully arrest a whole com- 
munity of people, and graciously convert a great multitude 
in a very few days. I have seen thousands subdued into 
reverence and awe, even when they refused to yield to God. 
I have seen the moral character of a county reformed by a 
single camp-meeting. I have seen a solemn spell descend 
and abide upon a city population for days together. Stores 
were closed, the hammer w T as laid down, saloons without a 
customer, diversions and amusements all forgotten, and the 
Church and religion occupied every mind, engaged every 
to ague, and appropriated all the time. The Lord added 
daily to the Church, so mightily grew the word of God and 
prevailed. All of our cities and towns need the shock of 
one of these moral earthquakes to startle the guilty and 
send them affrighted and penitent to the altar of God. Ev- 
ery Church in the land needs a stirring up, a more genial 
current of life, a freer, more vigorous action. We hear a 
great deal about the resources and capabilities of the coun- 
try, and there is a cry for capital and enterprise to develop 
our industries. 

I sympathize with these ideas of work and progress. There 
are elements of latent power in the Church. These concern 
me still more. Indeed, a general awakening in both direc- 
tions would be a blessing. The two might harmonize and 
mutually serve each other Diligent in business, fervent iu 



372 BISHOP PIERCERS sermons axd addresses. 

spirit. They are not incompatible ; the union of the two is 
the divine order — serving the Lord in both. 

We hear much nowadays about "intense farming." I 
like the phrase. It is suggestive of thorough work, of high 
fertilization, of immense results. The planters generally 
have relied on superficial plowing in an impoverished soil 
with homeopathic manuring. They cover a large area, and 
with great labor reap an imperfect and scanty crop. One 
acre rightly managed would produce as much as' ten the 
way thiDgs go on. Just so in the Church. We are expend- 
ing a world of work and realizing a very partial income of 
souls. We multiply our prayers, but there is an awful dis- 
proportion between their numbers and the answers we get. 
W r e hold protracted services, and solace ourselves with a 
very few conversions out of large congregations. We talk 
of prosperous years, when the only evidence of life and 
growth is in the churches built or repaired, parsonages 
bought or refurnished, better pay, and larger collections, 
These things are useful, desirable, and take rank among 
what we call good works; but they fall far short of the 
great ends of the gospel ministry and of Church organiza- 
tion. Sure as we live, there is something wrong among 
us, something wanting. Our ideas need to be rectified, en- 
larged ; our methods relieved of their monotony, and made 
more inspiring. Our faith must take a stronger grasp on 
the promises and power of God. Our zeal for the salvation 
of souls, instead of laying in our hearts like embers burned 
in ashes, must become a consuming fire. We must pile on 
fuel by thought and faith, and desire and prayers, till the 
zeal of God's house shall eat us up. We must muse on 
these things till the fire liindles, and our spirits are all 
ablaze, and our very bones crackle in the flame. Get out 
of the old ruts, brethren ; they are full of holes, and you 
must needs go slow, There is smooth, hard ground on 



REVIVAL NEEDED. 373 

either side. If not room to travel on parallel lines, do as 
in driving in buggies — straddle the hinderances, and make 
better time and easier work. Intense religion is the desid- 
eratum now — a holy, consecrated ministry, a spiritual mem- 
bership, and all praying, working, and looking for the 
conversion of the world. Our Lord's vineyard has been 
yielding a very slender revenue — hardly paying expenses 
— especially in Christian lands. We must prune the 
vines, dig about the roots, enrich, spade deep, do thorough 
work, and trust God for the early and the latter rains. 
May he grant us this year a vintage of the grapes of 
Eschol! 



NUMBER THREE. 

The more I think and pray, and the more I hear from 
the presiding elders and preachers as to the general outlook 
among the churches, the more hopeful I grow. The signs 
are glowing; the clouds are big with mercy; the winter is 
over and gone; the birds are singing, the trees are bud- 
ding. All nature is reviving. Let the slumbering churches 
all awake. Let every preacher become an evangelist. Stir 
up all the elements of spiritual life. We need activity in 
every department — more faith, more prayer, more zeal for 
souls, an enlarged liberality. Do not wait for the season of 
protracted services. Begin at once. " The set time to favor 
Zion" is now. Right views and sympathies and affections, 
all embodied in proper effort, will determine the event, its 
power and duration. 

But let us thoroughly understand what we are about, 
what we propose to accomplish. I heard my father once in 
a sermon make a distinction between a religious revival and 
a revival of religion. I do not mean to philosophize by way 
of explaining, but simply state facts with which we are all, 



37-i bishop pierce's sebmoxs axd addbesses. 

alas ! too familiar. There may be an excitement gotten up 
by manipulation, by sensational oratory, by dramatic scenes 
glowingly described ; and for a time the people seem to be 
all tenderness and sensibility. There may be tears and 
shouts and ecstasies, a weeping congregation, a crowded 
altar, and many accessions to the membership ; yet it turns 
out to have been a mere church festival, pleasant enough, 
but unprofitable — like a fine shower in a droughty season 
followed by a dry, hot wind. The ground was too hard to 
absorb, and the surface moisture was all swept away by the 
heat and the wind. In these revivals, so called, conviction 
was superficial, repentance shallow, and reformation partial 
and short-lived. There was no improvement in the Church 
itself. The apparent life — so full of promise as to recovery 
— health, and vigor was simply a galvanic result; machin- 
ery at work on an automaton — no blood or pulse or heart ; 
mechanical force mimicking vital power. I have seen the 
"very elect" deceived by it. A genuine revival contains 
in itself and manifests intrinsic evidence of its divine ori- 
gin; but the true test of its moral value is in the future 
conduct and character of its subjects. This "tree is known 
by its fruits." I steadfastly believe a Christian man may 
fall from grace; but I have great confidence that a true 
convert will not. People may be impressed, but not decid- 
ed; convinced, but not converted; reformed, but not re- 
newed; in the Church, but out of Christ; profess religion, 
but love the world as fondly, passionately as the gayest dev- 
otee or the covetous idolater. A profession of religion ought 
to be the guarantee of all that is true, pure, honest, lovely, 
and of good report — the highest type of citizenship, the 
bond and pledge of patriotism, philanthropy, fidelity to 
God and man. AVe hear of great prosperity in the Church 
now and then — many additions here and there — but the 
missionary treasury is not the beneficiary of these swelling 



REVIVAL NEEDED. 375 

numbers. Nothing is helped but the annual census. The 
local churches are not improved in tone, habits, or attention 
to duty. The family altar lies waste, without sacrifice or 
fire. 

The man returns not from business or festal ceremony to 
" bless his household." The woman forgets her closet and 
her children in her pursuit of pleasure and diversion. The 
preacher tries to be happy if, at long intervals, he may in- 
terject a good meeting anywhere in a series of dry, dull, 
insipid services. This " poor, dying rate " holds on. Ho- 
sannas languish, and the dreary, barren Church mourns 
not. This order of living is accepted as inseparable from 
our imperfect state, and the only hope of relief is that an- 
other religious picnic will come round after awhile. Like 
those churches that observe Lent — religious by canon and 
rubric once a year for a few days, all the rest surrendered 
to the world, the flesh, and the devil; " Lent " a sham, and a 
snare, and a delusion to those who dance and dissipate up to 
midnight before it begins, and resume by sunrise when it 
ends — so we Methodists, I am sorry to say, seem to be very 
earnest, and active and happy during a "religious revival;" 
but the "morning cloud" and the "early dew" tell the rest 
of the story. 

I do not want to be misunderstood. I am working for a 
revival of religion: a religion that converts people, renews 
them in the spirit of their minds, creates them anew in 
Christ Jesus, delivers from the bondage of sin, injects new 
ideas — purer, better than the old — brings them out of the 
world, and separates them unto Christ; a religion that re- 
deems a man from all sin, and sets him on holy living, on 
self-denial, painstaking, circumspection, and prayer; that 
imbues his spirit with love, seasons his conversation with 
grace, and makes him a witness for the truth as it is in Je- 
sus — an example, a model, an Israelite without guile or 



hypocrisy or wavering. In a word, let us have in the name 
of the Lord a revival (there is some of it in the Church 
visible to all — much that is latent, smothered, needing air) 
of pure and undefiled religion — a sin-killing, sin-hating, sin- 
forsaking, debt-paying, God-serving, man-loving religion; 
a religion that makes the Church liberal ; that lifts up the 
fallen drunkard, sets him upright on his feet, makes and 
keeps him sober ; that crucifies the pride of life, the lust of 
the eye, and the lust of the flesh ; roots out the love of the 
world, and fills the soul with the love of the Father; a con- 
sistent, steadfast, uncompromising religion, always abound- 
ing in the work of the Lord. 

The strength of the Church is not to be determined by a 
per capita count, but by experience and practice, character, 
and social and business reputation. Do not make haste, 
brethren, to receive into full fellowship. Abide by the Disci- 
pline. Heed its instructions. Large, hasty, undiscriminat- 
ing accessions may give you eclat as a revivalist, but the 
"falling away" will discount your ministry, and wring 
your heart with mortification. Let every member be an 
increment of moral force — one not only to be counted, but 
relied upon ; a palm-tree, tall and fruitful ; a cedar of Leb- 
anon, strong, ever green, fat, and flourishing even down to 
old age. O for a soul-saving revival of the Christian relig- 
ion! a pure, consecrated ministry! a holy, spiritual Church, 
without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing! The Bride- 
groom cometh, let the virgin bride make herself ready ; and 
may we all be worthy to go in to the marriage of the Lamb ! 



NUMBER FOUR. 
In a faithful, spiritual Church a revival is the natural 
order, the appropriate and habitual moral condition. Ev- 



-REVIVAL NEEDED. 377 



ery gathering together of the people in religious service 
ought to be signalized by some special token of the divine 
presence and blessing — sometimes the spirit of praise and 
rejoicing among them that believe; sometimes awakening, 
convicting power among the irreligious; sometimes the con- 
version of one or more penitents. Again, all of these events 
concur; the Church is happy, sinners tremble and yield, 
and mourners pass out of darkness into marvelous light. 
These results characterized Methodism for well-nigh a cent- 
ury. The preacher and the people expected something to 
be done every time they met in worship. God honored 
their faith in the communications of his grace. Past his- 
tory would be repeated on a larger, grander scale in these 
days if the Church travailed in spirit as once she did. My 
conviction is that if the Church could be rallied in her de- 
sires and efforts, believed in prophecy and promise as she 
ought, would rise above the limitations of her own experi- 
ence — the facts that oppose and discourage present large 
expectations — revivals would be more frequent, numerous, 
powerful, and rapid in issues than ever before. I verily 
believe these displays of divine grace will increase till a 
general revival sweeps over the habitable globe. Pentecost 
was more than a fact; it was a type and a model. May I 
say it reverently, a specimen of what God could do by the 
preaching of the word and of the way he proposed to work. 
The Church, all along, has unfortunately pared down her 
expectations to a much smaller scale. Let us enlarge our 
ideas, and look abroad upon the whole valley of dry bones, 
and in response to the skeptical question, "Can these dry 
bones live?" cry in the fullness of faith: "O ye dry bones, 
hear the word of the Lord, Come from the four winds, O 
breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live!" 
Our God has infinite resources. O that the Church would 
trust him and "prove him!" God of grace, confound the 



378 bishop pierce's sermons and addresses. 

philosophy of men, surprise the faith of the Church, reveal 
thy glory in human salvation. 

The Spirit of God is not bound by methods. The wind 
bloweth where it listeth. I have seen revivals of several 
types, and yet, judged by their fruits, all genuine. There 
was a revival in Augusta in 1832, beginning in May and 
running through the year. It was not a sweeping flood, 
but a steady rain. It had power enough to work and hold 
the congregation all the time. The regular order of service 
was maintained. Only one extra prayer-meeting was set 
up, and that upon a vacant night. Rarely more than fif- 
teen penitents at the altar. These were invited to all the 
social meetings, and conversions occurred at every service, 
private and public. The interest never flagged. At the 
winding up of the year the Church-record showed a gain of 
two hundred. Some of them remain to this day; some 
have fallen asleep; very few fell away. In 1837 an old 
dead church in Hancock by special effort was raised to life 
again. A great revival ensued. Out of it there sprung up 
a new church seven miles distant, which was in a state of 
revival for years. Though enfeebled by deaths and remov- 
als, it still lives, a strong appointment. I have just read 
that in Harrison county, Kentucky, a revival has been go- 
ing on for two years, and shows no signs of exhaustion or 
decline. Such cases might be multiplied — ought to be, and, 
I devoutly pray, will be. 

I will state another case for encouragement and for ex- 
ample. In 1846 Rev. C. W. Key was on the Sparta Cir- 
cuit. It was a year of very general prosperity in the Con- 
ference. Revival power came down and rested upon every 
appointment. Brother Key had no ministerial help except 
when I got home from the district to rest a day or two. The 
whole circuit was on fire. The preacher divided himself 
out as best he could, but with all his zeal he could be only 



REVIVAL NEEDED. 379 



in one place at a time. Now, then, what? Close up? Send 
the people away ? Drive the doves from the windows ? No, 
no! Each church took charge of itself. The brethren 
went to work, and lay labor was blessed along with the 
clerical. No neighborhood suffered for lack of service. 
My brother and comrade has gone, but I hope to meet him 
again, and talk over the very things about which I am writing. 
I am sorry that revivals, as a rule, have become excep- 
tional phases of Church life. I believe in special seasons — 
periodical meetings, if you like — and think them scriptural, 
but prefer an abiding, aggressive spirit, full of faith in the 
Holy Ghost, working in hope, and reaching results in every 
service. The thing is possible ; it can be done ; I have seen 
it. The recital of just such facts makes up a long, large 
.paragraph in our Church history. A Church thus alive, 
thus at work, "prepares the way of the Lord." When he 
comes there is no confusion or surprise, no girding of the 
loins or trimming of lamps. All are ready. The army is 
in line of battle, fully equipped, thoroughly furnished, 
eager for fight, and confident of victory. O what wonders 
we would achieve! "They that know the Lord shall be 
strong and do exploits." True, the work to be done is diffi- 
cult. The world is wicked and defiant, the Church is large- 
ly drowsy and inert; but moral power is not to be measured 
by numbers. The faithful few may win like Gideon's three 
hundred. Faith in God and truth may substitute a host. 
Cease to argue and speculate and theorize. These moods 
of thought engender doubt. They repress courage, forestall 
enterprise, let slip opportunity, and multiply the very diffi- 
culties in the presence of which you stand discouraged. 
Never mind the past or the present, " only believe." Pray 

and trust. 

Something yet can do the deed, 

And that blessed something much we need. 



380 BISHOP PIERCE'S SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 



The Spirit, the rushing -wind, the earthquake, the fire, 
and then "the still small voice;" conviction, alarm terror, 
the pains of hell — all these are needed. The Spirit can 
bring them about. God, in a certain sense, may not be in 
them, but they herald his approach and make him welcome 
when he comes. These still, solemn, tearless, voiceless meet- 
ings I confess I do not prefer. I like the rocking of the 
battlements, the groundswell, the sea and the waves roar- 
ing, the Church in awe and travail, sinners confounded, and 
all waiting in breathless terror and hope for Jesus to wake 
and speak, " Peace, be still." I like the calm that follows. 



NUMBER FIYE. 

Having assurances that these letters have done good and 
will continue to operate on many minds and hearts, I send 
you another. 

There are three things indispensable to the great end I 
am aiming at — the revival of the Church and the salvation 
of the country ; ay, let us stretch our desires and our faith 
to the Bible measure, the conversion of the world. 

First, a more- thorough, active, earnest consecration of 
the ministry. I write freely to my brethren, because I 
know them and love them. I know their virtues and their 
faults, and am fully persuaded that comparatively few of 
them realize their responsibilities and functions. They 
mean right, behave well, and would be unspeakably happy 
if the pleasure of the Lord prospered in their hands; but 
the short-coming is, they are not unspeakably miserable 
when the Church is stagnant, and there is no aggression 
upon the world. They are not indifferent; by no means. 
They see and regret their inefficiency; but their hearts do 
not break with grief, their heads are not a fountain of 
waters, their eyes are not red with weeping. A year's labor 



REVIVAL NEEDED. 381 

has been barren of results. It is very, very sad, but they 
manage to bear it. There is no special humiliation. They 
have failed to cast the devil out, but there is no more fast- 
ing and prayer in preparation for another encounter. Nay, 
they undertake to explain away the failure so as to excul- 
pate themselves. They offset utter defeat in the main en- 
terprise by magnifying some little incidental success. No- 
body was converted, but they bought an organ. There was 
no increase, but they left the Church in peace. There was 
no revival, but they brought up the collections. O breth* 
ren, brethren, this will never do! These things are no 
proof of your apostleship. You were called to convert sin- 
ners. This first, last, paramount. All other things are 
mere accompaniments-— good, proper, well enough in their 
place and order, but to a right-minded minister a very in- 
adequate substitute for the conversion of sinners. I have 
seen a preacher conscious of failure, and deeply deploring 
it, casting about for some alleviation of the painful fact. 
Like the woman who lost the piece of silver, he would 
sweep the house and sift the pile to find some crumb of com- 
fort. The tendency of such a mood of mind is, in self-de- 
fense, to magnify subordinate things, and of course to put 
the main thing comparatively in the background. False 
standards are set up, and the reasonings and conclusions of 
the man are unsafe and misleading. I fear that the trend 
of the whole Church is in the wrong direction. Well sat- 
isfied, as we all are, that w T e are lacking in spirituality and 
power, yet to gratify denominational pride, and parade our 
progress and resources, we are laying great stress on statis- 
tics. Our glory is not good. The Church is not intended 
to represent coin, but souls, What though our wealth in- 
creases? the very knowledge of it may prove a snare. What 
though we outstrip all competitors in architecture, taste, 
money, position, power, if we have not religion enough to 



A BISHOP PIERCE S SEEMOXS AND ADDRESSES. 

rid us of vanity and self-conceit, and to crucify us unto the 
■world ? 

and then I meet with a preacher who seems lubri- 
cated with delight. His face glows, he rubs his hands with 
satisfaction, his tongue is as the pen of a ready writer as he 
tells of the new house of worship or the reconstructed old 
one, or the best parsonage in the Conference. " My people 
are generous, liberal. O we are having a good time!" 
•• Well, brother, have you had a revival among your peo- 
ple?"' The inspiration is all gone, and a reluctant "15© M 
drawls from his unwilling lips. "Any conversions'?" "Xo; 
but the Sunday-school is full.'' "Do your people pray in 
their families? Do they attend your social meetings ? Can 
the grace of God be seen in their lives? " " Well, no; but 
they are clever and kind; and our Sunday congregations 
are fine, especially in the morning.' So it goes. Like 
priest, like people; like people, like priest — deceiving and 
being deceived. All working on the human line rather 
than the divine. Xow, mind, I do not say these work- 
which you brag, on which you lean, are wrong. 2sot at 
all. They may be; that depends on motive, I hope for 
the best, but much fear that many enterprises are projected, 
much money lavished, not to glorify God, not to promote 
religion, but in the spirit of rivalry to outstrip others. . 
indulge social pride, or to dignify our town. Let that pass. 
We will not judge. Of this I am sure : they are, or ought 
to be, very insufficient sources of comfort to a consecrated 
minister or a spiritual member. The plain truth is, your 
% Church is not in good condition, not doing well, is not real- 
izing her privilege, fulfilling her mission, unless it can be 
said of her — frequently, commonly — this and that man was 
born in her. 

Xow, brother preacher, I am dealing with you. I have 
great faith in you ; great hopes of you. Your heart is right, 



REVIVAL NEEDED. 383 

but you are often under trial, through stress of weather li- 
able to go off on a tangent. These catch-words, new depart- 
ure, may well make us pause. There is no magic in them, 
and where they fetch up neither you nor I can tell. 

Let us stick to the landmarks. Inquire "for the old 
paths, and walk therein." You are called of God to 
preach ; to enlighten, convince, persuade men to be rec- 
onciled to God ; to seek and save the lost ; to turn people 
from the error of their ways to the wisdom of the just ; 
to edify the Church, and to add to her " such as shall be 
saved." Look steadily to this end, and work for it. Get 
your mind and heart saturated with the idea, the conviction, 
that your sole business is to save men. Let this be your aim, 
rule, and goal. There must be a definite object in order to 
intense zeal. Vague ideas, loose plans, will evaporate all 
your enthusiasm. Your earnestness will be a fitful, tran- 
sient paroxysm unless you keep in view the grandeur and 
glory of your calling. Think often of standing in the pres- 
ence of the Master, surrounded by a multitude of the re- 
deemed whom you persuaded to go with you to heaven, and 
let the vision inspire you, give tenacity to your purpose and 
wings to your zeal. Go forth weeping. Tears become you, 
and grief is just, bearing precious seed. Sow in the morn- 
ing, and in the evening hold not thy hand ; sow on the high- 
way, where thorns and thistles grow ; on the barren rocks ; 
in season, out of season. The germ of life is in every grain ; 
the harvest will come, and you will return bringing your 
sheaves with you. Travail in sympathy w T ith Christ, and 
cry for souls. You never got religion while you felt that 
you could live without it; and you will never have a great 
revival till your heart breaks with longing. " Give me Scot- 
land, or I die! " said Knox to God. " Lord, save my people, 
or /perish ! " must be your prayer morning, noon, and night, 
O ye servants of the Most High, agonize, agonize! 



384 BISHOP PIERCE'S SEBMOXS AND ADDRESSES. 

NUMBER SIX. 
In my last letter I stated that as preliminary to a great 
awakening three things were indispensable. First, a more 
thorough consecration of the ministry to the one special 
work of saving souls. Now I come to the consideration of 
the second prerequisite — the outpouring of the Spirit upon 
the churches. This, of itself, would be, in its proper pri- 
mary sense, a revival. The Church needs this on her own 
account. She is not filled with the Spirit as she ought to 
be, and must be to realize the gospel ideal as to character 
and experience, and to carry out her mission to the world. 
Many members of the Church have never been converted 
at all. They know nothing, experimentally, of a sin-par- 
doning God. A new heart is to them a vague, mystic term. 
They have never received " the white stone " with the name 
written thereon which no man can read but he to whom it 
is given. There are secrets in religion revealed only in per- 
sonal consciousness. There is no other medium through 
which even the Spirit can interpret. To all this inner life 
and its sweet private communion with God many bearing 
the Saviour's name are utter strangers. To bring all these 
outer»court worshipers into the holiest of all by the new 
and living way would relieve the friction of our machinery, 
take off the brakes, diminish the dead load, and add im- 
mensely to the propelling power — if not by the accretion of 
force, certainly by freedom of motion. I have seen an over- 
loaded engine on a railroad, on an up-grade, of a frosty 
morning revolve its driving-wheels with tremendous raj}id- 
ity, and yet make no progress. The power was there, but 
the conditions were unfavorable. Time is lost, steam wasted, 
before momentum can come in as a factor in the difficulty. 
There is a vast deal of power in the Church, not latent ex- 
actly, but embarrassed. There is so much vis inertias, dead 
weight, indisposition to move or to be moved— so much 



REVIVAL NEEDED. 385 

worldliness to overcome — that time and labor are lost in 
making a start. And then, the movement is not natural — life 
acting of itself — but artificial, forced, always ready and will- 
ing to stop. Thus many of our protracted meetings exhaust 
preacher and people before there is a tear or sigh, a shout 
or an amen, to inspire hope or cheer the workers to further 
trial. As a pastor, I always relied on the regular services, 
and noticed the signs. When the angel of the covenant 
came down and troubled the waters, when the breath of the 
Lord swept over the valley, when the hopeful shower fell 
upon the fallow ground which I had scratched over, then I 
put in special effort, plowed deeper, and rallied the Church 
for the sowing and the reaping. 

And here I make two remarks — the conclusions reached 
from a varied experience and close observation. First, I 
have not much faith in those revivals that are "gotten up." 
" Get up a revival " is a phrase I do not like, and never use. 
Brethren appoint "revival meetings." If this were the 
language of faith and assurance, and not of hope and ex- 
periment, very well. Nevertheless, better say, " If the Lord 
will." You certainly cannot command it ; and if it do not 
"come down" from the Lord, what you "get up" will be 
more or less, to you and the people, a delusion and a snare. 
Do not try to regulate the meeting by an iron-clad pro- 
gramme. "Dare not set your God a time." Leave the 
Spirit free. Do not draw your watch on him, and tell 
him to suspend, " for the time is out." Without the Spirit 
you can do nothing ; and remember that you are neither his 
counselor nor guide. Honor and glorify the Spirit even as 
you do the Son and the Father. 

The second remark is that when the spirit of self-inspec- 
tion and inquiry is among the people, when they that fear 
the Lord speak one to another, w T hen the congregation grows 
attentive and serious and tender, and the more spiritual 
25 



386 BISHOP PIERCE'S SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

yearn and fast and pray more fervently than usual, then is 
the time. God signals the Church to arise and march to glo- 
rious victory. Now, do not dishonor God's grace and pow- 
er, his heart or his hand, by any form or measure of distrust. 
Rely upon him, and go forward. Do not send off for any 
human help. Let the revivalists alone. Do your own work. 
God and you and the Church can perform the duty of the 
hour. Do not divide public attention by bringing in a 
strange preacher. Do not dilute the faith of the Church by 
the suggestion of any other help than the divine. Hold the 
public mind to one line of thought and action. Rule out 
all division and diversion. Be sober, reverent; obey the 
Spirit. Humility, faith, zeal, all divinely diiected and 
sanctified, will meet the emergency. To God be all the 
glory. On these views I have acted in my ministerial life, 
and never departed from them in any ease on any account 
without hurt and damage to me and the work. "As thy 
day, so shall thy strength be," is just as true in a revival 
as any other trial. But this is an episode — relevant, yet 
away from the drift of this letter. 

The Church needs a revival for the salvation of her own 
unregenerate members. This is true of all the churches. 
We all have some hard cases unconverted and unreformed ; 
baptized sinners they are. Men of business, overcharged 
with the cares of this life, making haste to be rich ; society 
women, devotees to etiquette and fashion, who would rather 
grieve the Spirit than to provoke unfriendly criticism ; young 
people, gay and giddy, who have never actually renounced 
the pomp and vanities of the world. O beloved, there is a 
great work to be done in the Church ! Judgment must be- 
gin at the house of God. What then ? Must the revival 
halt and tarry till all these are washed and justified ? Nay, 
verily. Alas for the world of sinners if this be so ! Yet, 
what a letting out of the waters of life there would be if all 



REVIVAL NEEDED. 387 

these obstructions could be removed. The current would 
be strong and deep enough to float the world. But we must 
take things as they are, and do the most and best we can. 
The precious and the vile have always been strangely mixed. 
The wheat and the tares will grow together till the harvest. 
There is religion in the Church of the best kind — saints of 
God, holy people. Not a few, blessed be God. The num- 
ber grows. Our Elijahs who are mourning and begging to 
die because they are left alone are all mistaken. Our God 
has a people upon the earth, and he counts them by the 
thousand, and he is adding to their number daily. I trust 
he will duplicate the whole census this year. At any rate, 
there is religion enough in the Church, if we can get it or- 
ganized and at • work, to annex half the world to Christ's 
kingdom before next New-year's-day. I say half the world. 
God forgive me! Why not say all of it? Why not? Who 
can give a satisfactory reason? Anybody can suggest dif- 
ficulties, urge improbabilities, make out a formidable case 
of unfavorable antecedents, of current opposition, of hoary 
hinderances. Yes ; but is " any thing too hard for the 
Lord ? " Difficulties are nothing to Israel's God, and they 
ought to be nothing to Israel's faith. Great Head of the 
Church, help them that believe to measure up to the height 
of the grand conception of a world redeemed ! " The world 
for Christ" ought to be the motto of every Christian, the 
circle of his thoughts, the object of his desire, the measure 
of his faith, and the goal of his efforts. 

In the meantime, let the Church get ready for the battle 
and the psean. We cannot assemble in one place, as did 
the first disciples, but we may have one mind and one heart. 
Morning, noon, and night, from every sanctuary and closet 
and family altar, let the cry ring, "Thy kingdom come!" 
Let every preacher seek the power from on high. Let him 
go to his people freighted with the fullness of the blessing 



388 BISHOP PIERCE'S SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

of the gospel of Christ. Let the heart of every church 
break with the longing. "Arm of the Lord, awake! Send 
now prosperity." Give the baptism of fire, the Pentecostal 
power. " Eevive thy work," and let it grow and spread 
and endure till its line has gone through all the earth and 
its power to the end of the world. Let all the people say, 
Amen ! 



number mm. 

I do not wish to worry your readers or to monopolize 
your columns. Perhaps I have written enough on one line, 
and yet I venture a closing letter. 

I wish the Church papers had copied all my epistles ; for 
they were intended for all the Conferences and all our peo- 
ple. The etiquette of the editorial code I do not well un- 
derstand, and certainly do not mean to criticise or complain ; 
but I would have been glad to have had the eye of all the 
churches. My sole object has been to do good — to call the 
attention of all the ministry and membership to the work 
that must be done to save our country and hasten the con- 
version of the world. 

Tidings reach me through the press and by private letters 
of increased thought, anxiety, and effort almost everywhere. 
Indeed, revivals are in progress in many places. An un- 
usual number of conversions have transpired at the stated 
services of the sanctuary. A presiding elder writes me that 
he had one at a way-side appointment as he passed from one 
quarterly meeting to another. All these things are omens 
of good — the herald-drops of a coming shower. The Mas- 
ter is walking among the golden candlesticks. The sound 
of his steps is heard in the streets, on the highways, and a 
gathering multitude are following after him. The signs are 
propitious, full of promise ; but, brethren, the work of prep- 



REVIVAL NEEDED. 389 

aration is only begun. The way of the Lord is not ready, 
The mountains are not dug down, nor the valleys filled up s 
nor the rivers bridged. Our iniquities still separate be* 
tween us and our God, and they obstruct his approach. 
Sins are to be confessed, deplored, forsaken — a huge mass 
of worldliness to be cast out. The Church must come up 
to a higher plane of moral living and a deeper experience 
of the things of the Spirit. There must be a fuller conse- 
oration, a clean-cut separation from folly and sin, a hunger- 
ing and thirsting after righteousness. The burden of the 
Lord must come upon us till we pray " with groanings that 
cannot be uttered." Jesus travailed in spirit ; so must we. 
AVe must not " despise the day of small and feeble things," 
nor yet be satisfied with partial results. When the work 
begins we must not halt nor relax. What God gives must 
be thankfully received, and made the giound of encourage- 
ment to ask for more. What he does in the way of saving 
sinners is proof of will and power, expressions of his heart, 
specimens of his handiwork. " He fainteth not, neither is 
weary." Work does not fatigue the Lord, nor does expend- 
iture exhaust him. Let us test him, " prove him." Faith 
honors God. He loves to respond to it. The angels in 
heaven rejoice over " one sinner that repenteth ; " so ought 
the Church. But let not one or a few fill the measure of 
our desires, or suspend our prayers and labors as though our 
work was done, our responsibility at an end. Let our faith 
be modeled after that gracious declaration of Christ : " Be 
it unto thee even as thou wilt." Again : "Ask what thou 
wilt, and it shall be done unto thee." What a charter of 
privilege is here ! How free and broad ! No limit but the 
resources of the Infinite, the Eternal, the Almighty. Un- 
belief may bar any mighty work. A timid, faltering faith 
may realize but little ; but bold, strong, heroic faith can 
abolish all boundaries save the truth and power of God. 



390 BISHOP PIERCE'S SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

O for the faith that removes mountains, plucks up trees, and 
" laughs at impossibilities!" The prayer of the apostles — 
" Lord, increase our faith ! " — teaches two great lessons : 
That we are not equal to our duties without more, and that 
certain necessary things cannot be done at all unless our 
faith is assimilated in kind and measure to the faith God 
has in himself. " Have the faith of God " is the marginal 
rendering. Lord help us to understand and measure up to 
the grandest possibilities of experience and achievements! 

In the great work to be done the Church must come to 
the help of the ministry. We need the hearty, active coop- 
eration of the laity — their sympathy, encouragement, and 
backing. They must be like-minded, and so naturally care 
for the Church and the state of the world. Private letters 
from various Conferences assure me of a great awakening 
among the people — more inquiry, more prayer, more expec- 
tation. As in nature, so in grace. Spring is at hand. The 
softened air, the early flowers, the swelling buds, all tell us 
that winter is over and gone. The luxuriant fullness of 
bloom and foliage must tarry yet awhile. There is an es- 
tablished order. Things are most beautiful and safest in 
their season. Nature is at work in the clouds, the atmos- 
phere, and the soil — all preparatory. In due time verdure 
and growth and fruitfulness will come. So in the Church 
— not much visible yet, but the leaven is at work. There 
is hunger, longing, and supplication. God's hidden ones 
are upon their knees ; humble hearts are pleading for the 
power from on high. The closet, the chamber, the field, 
the forest are wet with tears and vocal with prayer. Salva- 
tion is a process in individuals and in society. "The vision 
is for an appointed time, but it shall come, and will not 
tarry." 

To illustrate what is going on, let me give a few extracts 
from a private letter. The writer is a plain country worn- 



REVIVAL NEEDED. 391 

an, away from the world's highways, with nothing in her 
environments to excite or inspire — shut up to her Bible, 
her Advocate, and her closet. See how she thinks, how she 
feels, how she prays. She thanks God that in my letters I 
have put into words the yearnings of her soul. She says 
the Lord has recently " enlarged her heart ; " and she gives 
me her daily prayer. I give a mere synopsis, the substance. 
She begins with the Lord's Prayer ; then she prays for the 
extension of the Redeemer's kingdom; for freedom from 
sin ; . harmony with the Spirit ; for her pastor and the cir- 
cuit ; her presiding elder and the district ; the North Geor- 
gia Conference, the South Georgia, the Florida, the North 
Carolina, the South Carolina, the Missouri, the Arkansas, 
the Texas Conferences; for Mexico, China, Brazil. She 
mentions the missionaries by name. She prays fbr the 
Bishops and their work; for the Church, and for the hea- 
then, that they may hear of Jesus and accept him. Now, all 
this is very simple, yet very broad and evangelical. The 
range shows thought, knowledge, heart, hope, faith, love. 
She reads the Church papers, knows what is going on, is in- 
terested, and is helping all she can. I have condensed her 
account very much; but I wish to add, her prayers are spe- 
cific, definite — not vague and general, a tissue of words. 
Her heart articulates the sentences. She pleads her cause 
— is suing the Lord upon his own bond. Well, what of it 
all? "Why, just this : This is one case out of many. In nooks 
and corners, in obscure retreats, among men and women, the 
work of the Lord is preparing. The simple, the babes in 
Christ, the ignorant if you will — who have no better sense 
than to believe every word that God hath spoken — are cry- 
ing unto him day and night. Will the Lord not hear and 
come? Yea, verily ; and speedily. Amen! Moreover, this 
case is exemplary. What she is doing all might do ; as she 
feels and prays, so might all. And if all, what power in 



392 bishop piercers sermons and addresses. 

the pulpit, in the means of grace, among the people! I 
commend her intelligence, her broad views, her devout sym- 
pathies, her comprehensive prayers. She wrote to encour- 
age me, and I tell this simple tale to stimulate and guide 
others. The great Head of the Church, hear her prayers 
and bless her example ! 

Let us all fall to prayer more and more. Fast on Fri- 
day before the quarterly meeting. Let every man fill his 
place. Crowd the prayer-meetings. Exhort one another. 
Put on the whole armor of God. Gird your loins. Take 
your staff in hand. Bind your sandals to your feet. AVatch 
the cloud by day, the fire by night. Be ready when the 
Lord smites the waters of the river to go over and possess 
the land. 

No civil reform, no change of dynasty, no revolution in 
government, no art, no science, no education can save us. 
Nothing but a heart-renewing revival out of heaven can 
do the work we need. O Lord, revive the Church and 
save the world ! 



number mm. 

For a reason which will be apparent I write another let- 
ter. If the local preachers can be actively enlisted, they 
might make an immense contribution to the work of gen- 
eral revival. As a class, they are willing coadjutors of the 
traveling ministry in the regular and especially in the extra 
services of the Church. But they can do more, and more 
effectually, upon another plan of operation. In the terri- 
tory of some of our oldest circuits there are decayed, neg- 
lected churches that might be revived and reestablished. 
There are waste places, out-of-the-way neighborhoods, in 
many counties where appointments might be made, Sunday- 
schools set up, societies organized, and whole communities 



BEVIVAL DEEDED. 393 

brought to Christ. Within the corporate limits of our 
cities, on the suburbs, and near by, sometimes are large 
groups of people -without the gospel. Local and social 
causes operate to bring about this state of things. Now, 
here are fields white to the harvest. They invite the reap- 
er's sickle. As on a plantation the brier-patches are the 
richest spots and pay best for clearing, so in Church-work 
places that have been lying out unnoticed, overlooked, when 
once taken in, respond most promptly and most beautifully 
to care and attention. In other years, when I was a sta- 
tioned preacher, I experimented on this line, and always 
with the best results. 

Now, I respectfully suggest to my local brethren to hunt 
out these places, take charge of them, and go to work in 
the name of the Lord. Let each one select his field and 
deliver himself on it. Do not spread out, but concentrate. 
If there be material and promise, preach at the same place 
every Sunday. Two such appointments should be the max- 
imum. Once a month preaching is slow work and of doubt- 
ful issue. Resolve to do, and let your plan be effective. 
Dearly beloved, you can do a great work. Just think of it ! 
In our Church we have about six thousand local preachers. 
Suppose every man effectively employed outside of our reg- 
ular work, what an increase of territory ! How many new 
congregations, and how old and feeble churches would be 
strengthened ! On this plan we might have six thousand 
more revivals and two or three hundred thousand more 
souls saved. Ponder these things, brethren. I know you 
desire to be useful. Get away from the fields if not ex- 
hausted by cultivation yet provided for, and go to work on 
new ground, or take in an old field and restore it. Let us 
turn Immanuel's land into a garden enriched by the'river 
which makes glad the city of God. Men and brethren, 
help. Fulfill your ministry. Dig wells in the desert. Un- 



394 BISHOP PIERCE'S SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 

seal fountains in the valleys. Multiply the green pastures. 
Fold the wandering sheep beside the still waters. "My soul 
breaks out in strong desire" for the coming kingdom. I 
long for the rushing wind, the descending fire, the Pente- 
costal count of souls. Let us all get ready — not by stand- 
ing and waiting, but working, trusting, praying. "Fear 
not; behold, thy God will come, even God with a recom- 
pense. He will come and save you." Even so, come, Lord 
Jesus; cleanse .Jerusalem, sanctify our homes, save our 
country. 



THE END. 



Q 



